A short Interview to get to know more about mentors and their stories on ADPList.

BE CONFIDENT —
Reflections on a designer's journey.

Of Mentors and Mentees

It’s been a great pleasure indeed. To be able to write for a platform that has tremendous capabilities and infinite potential. I think that one of the great learnings that I’ve had through being a part of this as a person of the creative and design community — To never stop learning and as electronic communications often say — feel free to reach out. Designers across the globe take out some time to be able to connect and provide value and insights to those in need professionally or at times even on a human level.

To Connect and Learn

So to speak, and being able to learn through screens, is what gives credibility to the platform, its members, and all that it means. It’s always a sort of awakening to realize how much one can learn from people in the industry, and similar are my learnings. I could probably say a lot with even just a few mentoring sessions but I decided to stick to just mentioning the Incredible talent my mentor has been an epitome of. To give an idea of personality — a bright soul, a will to help, and an effectively fun way of communication. To elaborate on the same, here are a few things that were talked about in a short remote interview:

• When asked to give a little introduction, we got to know the professional experience, education, and expertise along with the way of life path that possibly allowed to make the choices to get into a creative path and careers, interestingly which was a family background of coders and an introduction to the field of UX, which we all know is awesome once you get to know it.
• With the expected chuckle on this one, the reasonably direct answer was to mention how difficult it is sometimes to respond to referral requests without knowing much, which would always be a difficult thing to bring up in a conversation.
• A question that all of us would have an answer to would be about a pandemic hobby that one picked up, and we got to know that reading books on UX or some novels was one with an interesting count of 35 books in the previous year along with a likely hobby to play volleyball given the bent over sports and how it might be of importance to a healthy lifestyle.
• A short but simple answer to an in-depth question, when asked about the impact on the world with individual design skills, was making people’s lives easier.
• This one question seemed a bit both happy and serious as it talks about a situation where one would think that they would not be able to make it but eventually does. We got to know about a rather realistic depiction of life struggles as to how the pandemic situation caused a tough time while taking away the job and professional safety of an individual, but the happy and positive aspect of the same is how with a few months of the struggle to find a job eventually led to having a go at a rewarding career opportunity again.
• An interesting one was when asked about the kind of mentorship and the reasons for the choice of areas of mentoring. We got to know the helping attitude required as a mentor over here as the need to provide valuable insights on anything from updating a portfolio to providing feedback on the important aspects of building and showcasing a portfolio for review to help career advancement was expressed.
• This question would almost be relatable to every mentor out there of the 3 most common questions to get from a mentee and how you answer the questions as a mentor was not very surprisingly the questions on finding a job, building a portfolio, or getting through interviews, the answers to which are also what lies in the previously described aspects of mentorship in building a portfolio and giving a walkthrough of expressing oneself through an interview and communicating effectively.

I guess this question was the highlight of the entire interview session as it asked about one thing that a piece of advice be as a mentor that could be shared with every mentee, and the answer to which was “Being Confident” supported by a popular saying which goes like “I’m the best thing since sliced bread.”

A few bite-size facts to give an insight would be —

Favorite emoji -

Most played song -

Go-to-drink — Coffee / Moscow Mule — Depending upon the context.

And a slight sneak peek of what I could describe of my mentor -

Endless Possibilities

I’d like to highlight my views on mentorship as a relatively new and different form of communication when compared to that of an educator or a senior professional even though there might be similarities. The difference on the contrary is what creates the value of a mentor to be open-heartedly providing one’s learnings to be used by those in need. ADPList was born out of an acknowledgment and discovery of such a need of individuals seeking mentorship to which it has lived up to and has grown much more as a community understanding the various professional and cultural backgrounds of its members.

Getting Started

One can reach out to be a part of the community events on various topics interesting for the one’s seeking to explore, while the platform allows for more detailed and specific forms of learning and you can begin by setting up a profile or just exploring the multiple areas of the creative and design community that are there to learn and grow within.

Tip of the Iceberg

The community has learned and served as an enabler for the growth of its members. It is always a delight to know about the feedback of the members on how it has helped through a vast array of spaces to gain insights from being a mentor, mentee, or a guest. The very simple idea to enable communication between those who need it has been a success stone.

Thanks for your time.

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