Untrained intern; how do I get him to do problem solving on his own?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

For a while now, I've been having a bit of a problem with a fairly untrained intern, who does not have a huge amount of experience in programming. Early on, I told him he could ask for help, knowing I would have liked help in that position.

However, it seems like he does not go to the minimal effort of figuring out the root cause of a problem before asking. Many times, it has been the same variety of problems with the same solutions and same methods to diagnose.

We are working on a web application. I have been trying to drill basic practices in by repeating them whenever he asks a question. No matter which question he asks, I start the answer with:

• did you read the error?
• did you check what data is being published?
• is that data what you expect it to be?

I've figured after enough repetition of this formula, he would know that there's no point in even asking if I am just going to guide him through it in exactly the same way (and it works for 90% of problems). However, he still consistently asks questions, often which are complete repeats of what we've done before and are easy to find on google (such as "how to merge git branch")

What would be the polite and workplace-correct way to deal with this? I simply can't be there to answer his every question, and it's not good for him in the long run either.

manpreet 2 years ago