My Selection to GSoC’ 21 @ SCoRE Lab
My process of getting selected to one of the biggest organizations in Google summer of code in my first attempt😍
Hey all, you might be the one who is surfing through the Internet and thinking of how I would get into GSoC. I will not be explaining what GSoC is, as I am sure you all must be knowing about it. Today I will discuss how I made it to GSoC in the first attempt.
About Me
Coming to me, I would term myself a passionate coder who always tries to explore new opportunities. I love to learn new techs and try to make stuff out of them. I am not someone who codes day and night and has a lot of knowledge, but I call myself a generalist in tech and a master in some. Coming to GSoC, I came to know about this program in my first year, but at that time, I was just a newbie and had thought that I would be applying to this program one day for sure. In the second year, I was occupied with a lot of stuff, so didn’t apply for it.
The time….
Coming to the third year, I felt this is the time to apply for this program(Abhi Nhi Toh Kabhi Nhi 😅).
I had been contributing to many OSS events in past years and had good knowledge in the same. I started to look at the GSoC stuff from Mid Jan-Feb onwards. The most difficult part of what I call for being getting selected to GSoC is choosing an organization. I have Initially chosen an organization that I had thought would be participating in and was very much interested in a project there, but unfortunately, that organization didn’t get selected. Now it was the time to look at the other organizations that I had kept in hand with me.
Plan and Execution…
Ultimately, after 4–5 days of going through almost all the projects and organizations, I came to ScoreLab Organization, and two of its projects attracted my interest. One was senz client and another was NodeCloud. I was more inclined towards Nodecloud and finally decided to take this one and started working on it. I went through the documentation, though it seemed quite tough to understand the node cloud initially as there was a typescript compiler being used and a lot of stuff was done like parsing, transforming, etc. which I had not tried before, with time and with the help of my good understanding of javascript, I was able to understand, run and finally was able to implement the Proof of Concept of the required project. I was glad that I made it!!!!!
Till this time I was close to proposal submission. Finally, I made my proposal and Submitted it to the GSoC.
The Results Day
After I submitted my proposal, I was eagerly waiting for the 17th of May, the results day. I had 70% confidence that I would be selected, but 30% was giving me high pressure. I wanted to focus only on GSoC this summer so was quite confused and scared while applying for internships. The days passed and it was the result day now,
Around 11:15 Pm while I was continuously looking for an update in my email inbox, I saw this…
I was in cloud nine and was too happy to tell my parents that I got accepted into the GSoC.
What made me clear GSoC🧐?
- My Comprehensive search of Organizations and Projects- I worked on many projects while searching like Rocketchat, Donut, etc. But finally choosing a project where you find yourself with the highest chance of clearance, interest, understanding, and prior knowledge is a key to success.
- Plan and Belief is everything- If you have an inner belief that you can clear and work on a big codebase project, nothing can stop you. To do something big you need to dream big(Pehle hi bolna aukat nhi hai aisa nhi chalega). Planning is also important you should know when is the right time to apply and where to apply.
- Open-source and other achievements- If you had a great open-source record before it would be an added advantage. I had previously contributed to Student Code-in, LetsUpgrade open source events and participated in many hackathons, so it added a star to my proposal. You basically have to make the mentors believe that you have the required skills and talent to work on the project. So keep learning and enjoying the coding stuff and everything will come to you automatically;)).
- Never think all organizations are the same- You might be asking a lot of people how they cleared GSoC and they would be telling you stuff like, try to have more presence in the community, Some might be saying make more contributions and others might be saying that proposal is not important, etc, etc… But let me tell you all organizations are different and have different parameters of selection, some might need POC, while other need contributions and some need a good proposal. Also, it depends upon the project. If a project is new then the may require POC but if it is old then some contributions are needed. So best is to sit and analyze organizations and projects and then act accordingly.
PS- If you want me to write a blog regarding different parameters of selection in organizations, let me know in the comments section.
At last, I would say GSoC is a great way to learn more and an opportunity to deep-dive into the open-source world. Actually, it teaches you how to work on big codebases. The results are not important, you might not be able to clear as competition is huge but the boost it gives to your coding practices and knowledge is incomparable. So I would suggest giving it a try once for sure!
I would be adding my GSoC updates and progress here, so stay tuned….😋
May the Open Source be with you!😉
