The Software Sustainability Institute is looking for volunteers for our next Research Software Camp to mentor beginners who code in academia as part of our Learning to Code mentorship programme. Volunteers will ideally self-identify as Research Software Engineers, even if that’s not their current job title. 

Sign up to become a mentor

Our spring Research Software Camp: Next steps in coding will focus on improving computational and training skills and exploring existing resources out there. The Camp will be held from 16 to 27 May 2022. 

What to expect

The Learning to Code mentorship programme will run from 16 May to 22 July 2022 (12 weeks). We will hold a Launch event on Monday 16 May, as part of the Research Software Camp: Next Steps in Coding, to introduce the programme, mark the start of the mentorship and pair mentors and mentees according to their language or tools of interest.

We ask mentors to commit at least one hour every week to walk their mentees through their projects from 16 May to 22 July 2022.

Why become a mentor?

In a tweet, one of our previous mentors quoted Richard Feynman: “If you want to master something, teach it." 

Mentoring challenges not only how you perceive your current skills and knowledge but also how you explain concepts or skills to help develop and motivate others. Becoming a mentoring or continuing your mentorship journey will help to expand your skill set, take an active role in the uptake of good research software practices, and, if you’re a Research Software Engineer, contribute back to the development of future RSEs.

About the mentorship programme

We ran the first Learning to Code mentorship programme last November as part of the Research Software Camp: Beyond the Spreadsheet. The aims of the mentorship are to improve the coding skills of beginner learners and provide hands-on help and support post-training to develop specific computational skills. Over the course of two months, volunteer mentors guide volunteer researchers to help them learn a language of their choice and explore various ways of developing their computational skills.

For questions, please email Selina Aragon, Research Software Camp Chair, s.aragon@software.ac.uk.

Sign up to become a mentor