GSoC’18: Journey So Far!
April 23, 2018: I received a letter from Google summer of code mentioning that my proposal has been accepted. This isn’t a success story. It is a story where I learnt from my mistakes and kept trying to achieve one of my life goals. This story will revolve around Imposter Syndrome & Procrastination: biggest enemies of my life.
It all started on my birthday i.e October 22, 2017. I was aware of the GSoC internship provided to a student (including my senior) but I was quite sure that I won’t be selected for it. I got to know about outreachy in a WTM-New Delhi event. I went to the outreachy portal and couldn’t find any suitable internship to an Android developer except one that was available in Systers Organization. I was quite happy about it. Reason? This is because I had joined Systers communication channel slack long back. I couldn’t apply due to Procrastination and I ended up bashing myself as usual.
After losing a golden chance, I got to know about GCI & applied as a mentor in Systers Organization.
GCI experience https://medium.com/@anamikatripathi1601/google-code-in-my-extraordinary-journey-9e3fefd11e9
GCI experience taught me a lot, specially communication and patience that is key points for any open source program.
Feb 12, 2018: Open source organization were announced and Systers was one of them. Yayyyyyy!
Till March 12, 2018: I attended most of the GSoC session & Community Open sessions(Thanks to May for organizing such sessions weekly & handling loads of questions). I even took the opportunity of giving lightning talks to discuss project demands for Infrastructure/automation ideas.
March 11, 2018: Application period was about to start & as usual, I didn’t start earlier and ended up having mental pressure to complete the detailed application for GSoC.
March 12, 2018: I promised myself that I’ll give it a try, no matter whether I’ll be selected or not, giving up was not an option!
I started listing down all the project expectation, small discussion during open sessions, open/closed issues, PRs, my ideas to update the source and everything relevant to project. Then I created rough deliverables for every month & started targeting each week for detailed deliverables.
It took me 36 hours i.e almost sleepless nights to write down the Community & background questions. (read reasons below). It took me 3days to create a rough application with all details & finally submitted my application for review on March 17, 2018.
March 18–27: I got few reviews on my application from mentors & I kept updating my application during the period.
Mistakes:
- I didn’t start early for the application. It was quite overwhelming to create the application in only 5days & I seriously faced mood swings during it. Sorry to all those people who faced it :p
- I didn’t read the sample application guidelines properly & misread 500 characters to 500 words. It was the reason that I kept writing till 2days only for community bonding & background questions. Lol…
- I wasn’t confident about my selection which is the reason that I was afraid to start my application. My friends & few seniors were quite sure of it though. It’s strange that People know your capabilities better than yourself. Listen to your surrounding, they might know your talent, more than yourself.
It has been a wonderful year till now & I look forward to code, learn & meet great developers all around the world. I’ve interacted with my mentors( Nikita & Manisha) during GSoC team building, happy hour & 1:1 sessions. It’s going to be an adventurous journey for sure :D
Special thanks to my sisters, Jigar, Abhay, Amanjeet(senior), May, Rimjhim, Murad(mentor) & all the mentors/admins of Systers Community who have helped me through this journey, I couldn’t have achieved it without your support.
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