It would be a really interesting retrospective to reflect on how our working relationship has changed from OLS mentor/mentee to me actively sponsoring Meag to apply for the SSI Fellowship and connecting her with folks that have shared interests and/or for talks.
My perspective is the following:
The most impactful thing I learned from my mentors and by mentoring others is that your network (and sharing it) is your most important tool. We often get asked questions we don't know the answer to, and that's ok!, but it's rare that we don't have someone we know come to mind when we're asked a question. Building these connections not only helps solve the problem you were originally asked about, but enriches the question poser's network as well, opening up new opportunities. It's also a very low cost thing to do as it most often involves sending an introductory email (or tweet, or slack message, ...). At least for my network, people are open to helping others and collaborating and so not much is needed beyond noting a shared goal. Even if a collaboration doesn't immediately surface, the connection has been made for the future.
It would be a really interesting retrospective to reflect on how our working relationship has changed from OLS mentor/mentee to me actively sponsoring Meag to apply for the SSI Fellowship and connecting her with folks that have shared interests and/or for talks.
My perspective is the following:
The most impactful thing I learned from my mentors and by mentoring others is that your network (and sharing it) is your most important tool. We often get asked questions we don't know the answer to, and that's ok!, but it's rare that we don't have someone we know come to mind when we're asked a question. Building these connections not only helps solve the problem you were originally asked about, but enriches the question poser's network as well, opening up new opportunities. It's also a very low cost thing to do as it most often involves sending an introductory email (or tweet, or slack message, ...). At least for my network, people are open to helping others and collaborating and so not much is needed beyond noting a shared goal. Even if a collaboration doesn't immediately surface, the connection has been made for the future.