[rramadass]

Having a Mentor will help if you approach it the right way i.e. they are a guide on your path but cannot do your work nor have all the answers.

Their importance lies in the fact that they can guide you to and through a smaller set of right paths towards your goal bypassing the much much larger set of all wrong paths. They help short-circuit the learning ramp.

However if you develop a Auto-didactic mentality, you can do without a "full-time" Mentor; just receiving occasional advice is enough.