Over the past 6 years, we've training hundreds of people through our 12-week Drupal Career Online class, our new 6-week Mastering Professional Drupal Developer Workflows with Pantheon class, as well as our dozens of public and private trainings (literally) around the world. As part of our long-form 12- and 6-week classes, we've been providing on-going support for our graduates in the form of DrupalEasy Office Hours.
Each week, we set aside two hours for any current student or graduate of any of our long-form classes to join our online classroom to ask just about any Drupal-related question they have. It might be about a project they're working on, something they learned in the course, or advice on how to tackle something that is a bit outside of their comfort zone. Regularly using screen-sharing, we can almost always help the person with their request - and most of the time, those watching pick up a thing or two as well.
The most rewarding aspect of DrupalEasy Office Hours (for us, at least) is watching students helping students. As Robert A. Heinlein once said, "when one teaches, two learn" is something that we try to encourage in all of our classes as well as DrupalEasy Office Hours.
This type of learning community has been a hallmark of what DrupalEasy training, consulting, and project coaching is all about. By engaging a subset of the larger Drupal community, our students gain experience, knowledge, and most of all - the confidence to ask fellow community members for help in an environment that is supportive and nurturing.
Over the past few years, we've heard of similar programs by various Drupal shops who provide a similar service for their clients. We can't think of a better way to provide on-going goodwill and mentoring.
If you're a graduate of one of our long-form classes, be sure to pop-in and say hello (contact us for details).