Have you recently started coding as part of your research activities? Do you want to learn but don’t know where to start? Join our mentorship programme and get help from a dedicated research software expert! 

As part of our next Research Software Camp (RSC), we will be running a free Learning to Code mentorship programme from 24 April to 26 June 2023. The programme is aimed at beginners who are new to coding or have no experience in coding in academia. 

Apply to the programme before 20 March 2023. The form takes five minutes to complete. 

If you decide to apply, you’ll be paired with an expert that will guide you through this journey. In return, we would like you to write about your reasons for learning to code and your experience of working with your mentor and the programme. 

Why take part?

The aims of the mentorship are to improve the coding skills of researchers who are new to coding in academia and provide hands-on help and support to develop specific computational skills over eight weeks. If you’ve been trying to learn a new programming language but feel stuck, the mentorship programme is for you. 

Previous mentees have said: 

“I was keen to have a mentor for two reasons: to ask questions and for accountability… Having a mentor to check up on my progress and having a date in my calendar as a point when I needed to complete a task has really helped me to progress.” - Emma Karoune

What to expect

After applying, we aim to be in touch with successful candidates towards the beginning of April. We will hold a launch event on Monday 24 April to introduce the programme and pair mentees with mentors according to their language or tools of interest. They will then meet for up to one hour a week until 26 June, receiving advice on their project from an experienced mentor. We select candidates based on their interests, as well as the availability of our mentors. 

At the end of the programme, we ask mentees to submit a short blog post about their project or their mentorship experience and to present at our lightning talk mentorship event. 

About the Learning to Code programme

We ran the first Learning to Code mentorship programme in November 2021 as part of the Research Software Camp: Beyond the Spreadsheet. The aims of the mentorship are to improve the coding skills of beginner learners and provide hands-on help and support post-training to develop specific computational skills. 

Over the course of two months, volunteer mentors guide volunteer researchers to help them learn a programming language of their choice and explore various ways of developing their computational skills.

The spring Research Software Camp will be held from 19 to 30 June 2023. 

For questions, email Selina Aragon, Research Software Camp Chair, at s.aragon@software.ac.uk.

Apply to take part in the programme before 20 March 2023.