I knew about Outreachy project through a friend. When I read project’s objectives, I loved the initiative!. Also, I have been always curious about Free and Open Source Software, I knew some as user but I had never contributed and this was my chance!!
Outreachy has two possible internship periods of thirteen weeks, one in Summer and another in Winter. I applied for Winter period. When applying to Outreachy you have to keep in mind deadline dates that you don’t want to miss, fortunately they are all well explained in Outreachy’s webpage.
Before you apply to a project, you have to be elegible for Outreachy organizers. That consists in filling some forms with several questions to determine if you continue with the process or not. Rules are explained here.
As it takes some time since you send the forms and you are notified with the result, you can read the project lists with the positions available and a little summary of the project. The most difficult part for me was to select a group of projects with provided short description because sometimes it was very vague. Project extended description information doesn’t unblock until you are selected as elegible. So you can do a preliminary list with the projects you like the most, because as the list has a lot of positions when all information is unblocked it could be overwhelming to read all and select one or two.
Then time passed and I received an email: I was eligible!. First milestone passed!!
It was time to read carefully the full information and specifications of my previously selected projects. Outreachy organizers recommend do not apply to more than two projects because you have to make contributions for these projects with deadline dates, so having many contributions could cause you don’t finish anything.
Finally, I selected a Git project “Finish converting git bisect from shell to C” and contacted to project mentor Christian Couder. He guided me and helped in all process. When you select a project it is important to contact as soon as possible with the mentor to solve your questions about the project and to help you with the contribution.
My first challenge working in my first contribution was finding a suitable task in git’s open issues. And then learning all proceses of sharing and discussing work through messages with the helpful git expert community until contribution is accepted.
Then, before Outreachy deadline, a final application with all details of your contributions must be sent. And you have to wait with the result. For me it was a positive result, so now my Outreachy journey starts!
Thank you for reading!