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Mentorship Programfor "Software Engineering of Internet Applications" at MIT |
We'd like you to consider being a mentor for a student team in MIT Course 6.171, "Software Engineering of Internet Applications". Our students are generally seniors majoring in Computer Science. You'd be working with a team of 2 or 3 of these young engineers for a 13-week project.
What's in it for you? Not much, except for the opportunity to get out of the office and stroll around amidst the Henry Moore and Calder sculptures on the MIT lawns.
What must you do? Be available via email and telephone at least once per week for 13 weeks. Be willing to respond within 24 hours to a team request that you look at a Web page that they've built and provide feedback. We prefer Boston-area mentors who can sit down with students face-to-face every weeek or two. In 2006, the semester starts on February 7 and runs through May 18. Please remember that the university calendar is unforgiving. Stuff does not "slip to next week".
What would a typical discussion involve? You don't have to be an expert on the specific development tools that the student team chooses. A typical discussion would involve the data model, the page flow design, the documentation to be presented to the client and other engineers, and the plan going forward. You provide high-level advice. You serve as the engineer-in-the-stree: "This documentation isn't precise enough for me to understand how your system works." You give the team tips on working through difficulties with the client, on testing with users, and possibly on algorithm design.
What would be an ideal background for a mentor? You should have spent at least four years working as a software engineer. You should have built some applications with the RDBMS and SQL. You should have built at least one Internet application.
In the email we'd like answers to the following questions (we'll use these to pair you up with like-minded teams):To: philg@mit.edu Subject: mentor for 6.171