Mentoring and Interpersonal Skills
Personal development is an essential part of CODE’s educational approach. We want to equip the digital pioneers of tomorrow with the tools they need to perform to their highest potential.
Developing interpersonal skills allows our students to bring not just technical know-how and social awareness to their work, but also thoughtful self-expression, mindful team interactions, and professional behaviors. The core skills our students develop during their studies will serve them for the lifetime of their careers, regardless of how technology changes.
That’s why we offer dedicated interpersonal skills workshops, as well as integrated workshops with the various study programs. To help our students grow personally, we assign them individual mentors from the team. Mentors give guidance and advice to challenge their mentee’s skills, encourage them to reflect, help them to grow and are simply there for them whenever they need support.
Being a mentor is so rewarding, seeing students go through challenges and being there to help them in all aspects. And they give back! Their insights and feedback are invaluable.Chris Schmidt, Product Management
Your personal mentor
At the end of the orientation semester, you will choose your personal mentor according to your individual profile. Your mentor will offer guidance and advice on how you can make your individual learning experience at CODE as valuable as possible.
CODE students choose either group or individual mentoring for themselves each year.
For Group mentoring students meet with their mentors in groups of 4-6 people at the beginning of the semester and at the end if necessary. Students may also change to individual if they prefer.
For Individual mentoring students meet with their mentor for the first time in a group at the beginning of the semester; after that group session, the mentee contacts the mentor for individual meetings when they would like them.
It’s all up to you! You choose your mentor depending on your expectations and needs. Mentors can provide:
Academic guidance
Personal challenges and guidance
Connection to other faculty and/or staff and/or partners/resources
Questions from a perspective that mentees may not have considered
Encouragement and guidance in setting and
reaching personal or academic goals (or both)
Accountability for plans, goals,
academic engagement and achievement
A sounding board for mentee thoughts, plans, ideas
Support them as they navigate the sometimes difficult waters of being a student at CODE
The vision of our Interpersonal Skills department at CODE is to create spaces of awareness and empowerment, enabling you to reach your full potential, to influence the culture of CODE, and to leave CODE with confidence about your next steps.
At CODE we want to equip the digital pioneers of tomorrow with the tools they need to perform to their highest potential. This is reflected in the interdisciplinary approach to the study programs, and the addition of the Science, Technology & Society department. Developing their Interpersonal Skills allows CODE students to bring not just technical know-how and societal awareness to their work, but also thoughtful self-expression, mindful team interactions, and professional behaviors.
The core skills our students develop will serve them for the lifetime of their careers, regardless of how technology changes.
Moving from being a spectator to the driver of one’s own life is one of the most significant experiences we can provide to CODE students. Students at CODE learn Interpersonal Skills through dedicated workshops, as well as integrated workshops with the various study programs.
Your career success in the workplace of today – independent of technical expertise – depends on the quality of your people skills.Max Messmer
CODE’s Approach: The five pillars of Interpersonal Skills
- Teamwork
Students are able to find themselves in a team
They discover things about themselves they didn’t previously know and find safety to push themselves in new areas. They also find appreciation for the talents, gifts and skills of others, which allow them to let go of those tasks that suck the life from them and release them to others who find joy in doing them. Strong teamwork requires knowledge about oneself and others; we will find the motivation to work together and practice the tools that allow us to do so.
- Communication
Being able to communicate with all stakeholders
Students are able to take what’s in their mind and heart and communicate it in such a way that their audience is able to fully grasp what they want them to know. There is too much room for us to get in our own way of not communicating our stories; we will clear that path.
- Self Development
Managing expectations and being aware of the impact of decisions
Students are able to examine their past and present to discover how their experiences have shaped and molded them. They will be able to extract all the learnings they can from their past, turning dark into light through brave self-reflection and achievable challenges. Life doesn’t just happen to us; what does it look like for us to transform our experiences into new learnings, new pathways, new paradigms.
- Cultural Intelligence
Understand how cultures influence our work
Students have an awareness of their own cultural baggage and how that affects their interactions with others (both like and unlike them). They also know what to look for in pinpointing the cultural baggage others carry. With this awareness they can identify similarities and differences and find both common ground and compromise solutions. It is too easy to assign personality to cultural patterns; we will create new ways of seeing the world.
- Personal Vision
What do I want to achieve?
Students are able to shift from the safety of the CODE culture to the unknowns of the working world. They are able to identify the types of workplaces in which they will thrive and pursue those opportunities. Knowing oneself and what to look for in a job and a work experience are keys to saying yes to the best opportunity from a field of good opportunities.
Interpersonal Skills Modules
The core skills our students develop will serve them for the lifetime of their careers, regardless of how technology changes. These can be shown by passing our two Interpersonal Skills Modules.
Teamwork and Collaboration
Teamwork and collaboration are consistently listed as necessary skills for today’s job market, in technology fields and beyond. The ability to work effectively as part of a team is not a given and is not something that comes naturally to every person.
At CODE students have been trained in various tools that can be used to ease and improve team relations. These include but are not limited to mindsets, team development stages, feedback, communication, conflict management and intercultural awareness.
This module is meant to explore the student’s use of these tools and more to develop their own ability and skill at navigating teamwork, both as part of a partner project, and part of a non-partner project.
Leadership
Leadership is an often discussed and often misunderstood concept. It can be mistaken for influence or direction, coercion or management. The journey of leadership begins with the self and an understanding of what drives the self and what motivates and hinders the self. Exploration of various styles of leadership helps the student uncover the style that both personally speaks to them and provides them with the tools they need to lead their team.
Students will discover mentoring relationships outside of time and space through books and movies as they learn about leadership, and will also develop mentoring relationships with industry leaders.
What do our students think about Interpersonal Skills
Every student brings different skills and competencies to CODE and experiences especially the Interpersonal Skills journey in their own way.
Jonathan Noormann, #nextgen Product Management
Before I joined CODE I had trouble speaking in front of new crowds and hated the thought of holding presentations. Especially the individual workshops about public speaking have helped me to get out of my comfort zone over the past few semesters – to a point in which I’m excited to present something in front of a crowd now, although it’s still an ongoing process.
Mona Feder, #thirdparty Interaction Design
If you have good hard skills but are an asshole, you’ll never find a team. Sure, you can get far on your own, but the opportunity costs that you lose are usually out of proportion. That’s why it is even more important to set yourself up optimally in the areas of teamwork and time management. With the Interpersonal Skills Program, CODE lays exactly the right foundation to be able to work successfully in your studies and later in your career.
Timon Christiansen, #firstclass Software Engineering
When I started at CODE and went into my first project I thought of myself as a team player who is good at working in teams but still has to learn a lot about programming. Turns out that good communication was the hardest part of it all. At CODE you get to experience and train this from the get-go while at other Universities you will probably start experiencing this after you graduate.
