First of all, I’m not here to inspire you guys. I’m not one of those guys who could manifest that I worked hard to achieve what I’ve achieved. I’m here to share my unique story with you. A story with its twists and turns and something peculiar to my personal life. Nonetheless, I’ll share some generic advice and suggestions from my side but remember that your failures, perseverance, and hard work form a unique story for you that will be way different than mine. Replicating each other’s success is incredibly boring but achieving things in your own way by learning and feeding yourself new information from other people’s advice, suggestions, or other sources (books, articles, videos, etc…) is enticing and is what makes our lives unique and exciting.
The Beginning
It was March of 2023, I saw a video on YouTube about GSoC (Google Summer of Code) which was my first time hearing about it. The sad part is I was in my final year of undergraduate in a prestigious NIT institute when I first heard about it. However, I didn’t want to forsake the new opportunity that I could explore so I started going through organizations and their accepted projects for a few days. I filtered out the technologies I was comfortable with (using filtering options and those were web development and AI) and wrote down about 50 organizations where my interest could lie. Among those I filtered out projects that sparked my interest at first glance (I believed in gut over reasoning). At that time I believed in picking a project that solves a really good problem (I have no idea why I thought in that way). With the help of this logic, I was able to filter a couple of projects and finally was able to stick with one good one (at least to me) which I felt could solve a real-world problem.
I spent a few days in dilemma whether to work on two or three projects simultaneously or stick to just one project and apply for it. Somehow I decided to go all-in by sticking to just one project. I believed it would let me put my entire effort into making the only one I chose effective and elegant.
The Failure
Hence it has begun. I went through the project and drafted a proposal of around 40 pages describing how I would approach achieving the project’s primary objective. By the way, the project is about designing a website both the frontend and the backend whose purpose is to provide a platform for open review of research papers. It’s essentially a full-stack web development project. After reviewing the draft proposal, my mentor told me to show him a demo to convince him that I had what it takes. I made a frontend (using NextJS) and a backend (using MongoDB and ExpressJS) and presented the code with a demo (frontend) to him (I’ve attached the links below). He was impressed and my hopes sky-rocketed. With a high and bright spirit, I uploaded my proposal and curiously waited for the results. After a month of being in an almost constant state of anticipation, I saw my results and to my utter disappointment, I wasn’t selected.
Here’s my FrontEnd Code: https://github.com/dinakar17/SciCommons
And it’s Demo: https://sci-commons-eta.vercel.app/auth/login
Key technologies: NextJS, TailwindCSS, Typescript
BackEnd Code: https://github.com/dinakar17/SciCommons-Backend
Key technologies: NodeJS, ExpressJS, MongoDB, Typescript
ImageServer (From Scratch): https://github.com/dinakar17/SciCommons-ImageServer
Key technologies: NodeJS, ExpressJS, Typescript
Personally, it’s a bit disappointing for me to know that I didn’t get selected despite submitting all of this.
The New Beginning
A year has passed with me thinking occasionally (or often idk) what are the factors that contributed to my failure. I thought to myself “I showed a demo and submitted a well-drafted proposal. What did go wrong?” I had many reasons to defend myself that it wasn’t my responsibility I had the failure but eventually, I figured out it’s my responsibility to either learn or move away from it. Now GSoC 2024 had been announced as usual but I wasn’t even properly ready this time. In other words, I didn’t even give my attention to it in the least. But on one particular day, I was struck with the experience of my past failure and wanted to give it another try. That particular day was in March but contributors proposals had already been open from February month.
I started the same process of filtering out organizations and their respective projects that align with my interests or skills that I thought I possessed. I did this with less excitement and enthusiasm this time. There were again a lot of projects to choose from but somehow I came across the same project that I applied to last year and came to know that it wasn’t completed. All of a sudden a rush of excitement coursed through my veins and I was determined to get it this time. It also saved a lot of time that could’ve been spent exploring and studying specific details of a project. So, I began working with the code by implementing the features the mentor wanted the contributors to contribute to showcase their skills and potential. I made around 15 contributions (through Github commits) both in the front end and back end by losing track of time and spending a good number of hours.
With all the contributions in place and working I drafted a proposal and applied with a bit of doubt, curiosity, and a little hope. But this time I put a lot of effort into making the contributions by writing code but didn’t focus much on drafting a detailed proposal (14–15 pages this time) which did hurt me a bit later. A few days later after the submission, I received a message from the mentor mentioning that two slots were going to be allotted for the project this time and after messaging for a while I realized my proposal was ranked number two. I came to also realize it was mostly due to my proposal pdf that lacked in-depth explanation. The person who was ranked number one made his proposal pdf with 35–40 pages but made far fewer contributions compared to me in terms of code.
The Acceptance
It was May 1st, 2024. It was the day when I came to know that I’d been selected for GSoC 2024. After getting a blow in 2023, I felt relieved, ecstatic, and excited this time.
That’s my story like I mentioned with its twists and turns on how I got selected for GSoC 2024 after a failed attempt in 2023. As I promised, here are my advice and suggestions.
- Decide your Skills
Be sure of what you’re interested in and the skills you think you have 😉.
2. Be as early as possible (unlike me)
I came to know about GSoC very late (during my 4th year of college, silly me) and also started contributing way after the contributors period had started (both times). It would be better for you if you get started earlier both in terms of exploration and contribution.
3. Give it your all
I would recommend choosing and getting started with just one project so that you can give your undivided attention to it. You might research good proposal formats but there isn’t one. Just remember that your proposal (no matter whatever the format it was in) should include detailed explanations on how you could solve their problem or achieve their objective clearly and concisely.
4. Make your own story
We humans experience different emotions in different situations. The emotion that I might feel about a particular situation might not be the same for you. After all, that’s what makes us human. So, go through the high hopes of excitement and deep depths of desperation but remember to try to make your efforts worthier.
That’s all from my side. If you still have any doubts looming in your mind feel free to ask them. I will try to reply to every single comment.