I think we should create a thread on Talk about the mentors so that the incoming students know exactly whom to contact and get in touch with. We can have a thread titled ‘GCI Mentor Introductions’ along with :
- Short description of the mentors
- The tasks/module they will be focusing on, along with the tags assigned to tickets
- Mentor contact information, for instance IRC nickname.
I highly recommend all GCI mentors to setup an IRC Bouncer of sorts, or remain connected to IRC at all/most times. The best solution I found was IRCCloud (Thanks @r0bby!) where you can be active on the channel at all times (The free plan is 2 hours after checking in, after that you go idle) with native apps for Android and iOS and only receive notifications when mentioned. I have setup mine and will continue to remain active.
Telegram is fine but please mention your username on the thread so students can ping you over Telegram since we don’t know who is / who isn’t active on Telegram through the TelegamBot (or do we? Incase we do, students need to know how)
Communication is crucial and I feel all mentors should help out students /respond to students whenever and however possible to avoid them feeling lost / create Talk thread for trivial issues etc.
This thread could be pinned on Talk. That’s about it! As long as we have students actively in touch with mentors, a lot of things would become easier.