On being a mentor
Notes from the Leadership program at HCMUS — and what it taught me about getting out of the students’ way.
Mentoring sounds noble until you actually do it. Then it becomes a daily exercise in restraint — not solving the problem you can see clearly, because the point is for someone else to see it for themselves. Joining the Leadership program at the University of Science (VNU-HCM) as a mentor, and walking student teams through their capstone projects, made me much better at not answering questions.
Three things I keep relearning
- →A clearer question beats a faster answer — half the project is figuring out what the project actually is.
- →Silence is a tool — wait long enough and the team will surface the obstacle themselves.
- →Take the work seriously, take yourself less so — being the expert in the room is rarely useful.
What I owe the students
When the Smart City with AR team took 2nd place at the national Eureka 2025, the right thing was to step back and let them have the photograph. The work was theirs. My job, when it was working, was mostly to ask “and then what?” at the right moments and to refuse to rescue them when rescuing would have stolen the lesson.
The best mentors I had didn’t teach me anything. They made it possible for me to teach myself, and then they got out of the way.
