Hello folks. So, this post is basically to provide an insight on how I approached the GSoC/OPfW application process.Both the programs follow a similar schedule, but I’ll address GSoC mostly.
For the year 2014, the list of accepted proposals came out on the 24th of Feb.
Though there are many students out there who aren’t newbies like me, and start contributing to their organization even before this list is out, I however, started late.
Perl being one of the new languages that I learned as a part of my engineering project work, I was keen on contributing to the Perl community and began searching for similar organizations.
Finally, I decided to go with “The Perl Foundation” (TPF) Knowing that I had less time in my hand, I decided to apply to just one organization.
So, I went out there and checked the project ideas proposed by TPF. That is how I learned about MetaCPAN. MetaCPAN is basically an open source search engine for CPAN modules with a better UI and enhanced functionalities than the conventional sco. So, I made some noise in the irc channel and started interacting with the mentors and others in the community.
As a part of my pre application contribution: I had to basically generate sitemaps for MetaCPAN.
You can see my work here. Though it is not my best, I learned a lot out of it. My mentors were very helpful in making my first contribution a success. Work was already done and all I had to do was learn a few things and fix the loopholes.Everything, right from Github to Sitemaps was new to me. and I had a lot to work with.I tried my best and managed to fix the bug (again, with a lot of help from my mentors).
In conclusion, I would say –
There were 3 important things that I did while making my application:
1. Applied to just one organization. (In my case, it helped as I started off late and was a beginner).
2. Even though I knew nothing about MetaCPAN, I started by communicating with the mentors. (They made it very easy 🙂 ) and drew out a schedule for the same.
3. Fixed a bug and made sure the one application I would work on, had some strong points.
GSoc and OPfW are both great programs that every computer student must apply for. It definitely gives you much exposure. And your work is recognized in every way 🙂
That’s all for now!
My journey as a Programmer. 