It’s Not Impossible to Turn Things Around
A true story: Once upon a time there was a student with limited English. The mentor considered the communication difficulty as a potential issue, but the student was enthusiastic, and hoped to use the program as an opportunity to improve his English.
The onboarding went well, but during the first half of the project period, progress drifted off track. The student’s mentor was much busier with work than was anticipated, and the student became stuck several times with various issues. The student failed to proactively ask for help, and the mentor didn’t catch this, so the student became disheartened.
At the midterm, progress was disappointing, and the project came close to failing the student. But as the mentors looked at how they might try to rescue the situation, and after discussion with the student, they came up with a concrete plan. The student had a job in the lab for about 8 hours a week, which he agreed to put on hold until the end of summer. Each day the student updated a Google doc with what he was working on. This included reviewing any outstanding issues which might block progress. The student would camp on slack during the hours he worked on his project.
Additionally, a second mentor was brought in, so that a mentor would always be available when the student might be working. Progress was discussed daily. The organization also made it clear that if the plan didn’t succeed, that the failure would reflect badly on both the project and the student. All those involved were happy to work to address any additional issues that might come up.
By the final evaluation, the student was almost back on his original project plan, and had completed all the required goals.
It is possible to rescue a failing Summer of Bitcoin contributor, but we need to really consider the issues, and come up with a plan to address them. If this is the case for your mentee, please feel free to reach out to us. We'll sort it out together.
