What I learned so far by being a ScholarX mentee.

First of all, Thank you Sustainable Education Foundation for this great opportunity. I am very honoured to be selected as a mentee in ScholarX 2021. Let’s start from the beginning.

What is ScholarX?

ScholarX is a 6-month program for Sri-Lankan undergraduates who would like to get free premium mentoring during their study period. ScholarX 2021 programme kicked off with over 75 mentors and over 250 mentees from various universities around Sri Lanka and abroad.

I received an email on 26th April 2021 saying that they have been able to match me with a mentor. I got so excited that moment and rushed to the SEF site to see who’s my mentor. Then I saw I got matched with Prof. Arosha Bandara who is a Professor of Software Engineering at the Open University, UK.

A little bit about my mentor,

After the orientation, I got connected with Prof. Arosha and had our first call. In our first call, we got to know each other and discussed what we are going to do for the upcoming 6 months.

This is what I got from our first call,

• Contribute to open-source projects where uses the technologies that I’m interested in.
• Build your portfolio with different kinds of things you did and it does not have to be unique
• Do problem-solving challenges ex: adventofcode
• Try to do your own projects
• Improve your knowledge and try to combine your knowledge

Throughout the six months, I will be having a biweekly meeting with my mentor to discuss my progress.

Last week we had our second meeting and here’s what I got from that call.

• You learn how to learn with a degree programme
• It Will help you to improve critical analysis and critical thinking which is important as technical skills
• Keep track of what you are doing to prevent doing the same mistakes again and again
• The main goal of an undergraduate degree is to gain a broad knowledge on a range of topics
• Learn the basic principles and practise “how to solve problems using tools”
• Stay open to a variety of techs

One month out of Six months is already completed and I got lot’s of things to my life throughout these mentoring sessions. This is a wonderful opportunity I got. Thank you again SEF!

I hope you can also get anything out of this article see you guys in the next one. I will be writing a small article about my ScholarX journey every month. Until then stay safe! ✌️