Why I Still Believe in Mentorship

One of the best tips I ever got was from my table tennis coach. He watched me play and said, “You are leaning forward with the wrong foot!” I’d been playing for years and thought I had a good stance. I’m left-handed, and no one had told me that I should put my right foot forward. I had copied the stance of other players without noticing the problem. It was obvious once he pointed it out. But until then, I hadn’t thought to question it, and more practice hadn’t helped me notice. That single observation improved my game more than any amount of practice because it gave me better control over my forehand topspin. Note that I didn’t actively seek out advice on my stance. Someone had to watch me play before either of us knew there was something to discuss. Mentorship in Software This is part of why I still believe in mentorship, even now that an LLM can answer so many programming questions. In software, we often work without that kind of support. We learn systems design, architecture,…