Get Set Outreachy

Here is my first blog about the most exciting thing of these summers - Outreachy Internship.

Before I begin to put down my journey, I would love to introduce myself. I am Nisha Brahmankar, selected for the Outreachy Internship May 2019 to August 2019 Round. My project is "Improve Ironic Agent Image Builder" in the Ironic community of OpenStack. This is the team whose help and mentoring brought me here. :)

What Is Outreachy?

Outreachy provides internships to work in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Outreachy internships are open to applicants around the world. Interns work with experienced mentors from FOSS communities. Outreachy internship projects may include programming, user experience, documentation, illustration, graphical design, or data science. Outreachy runs twice a year.

In simple words, Outreachy is a platform that has the ability to turn a layman into a FOSS contributor and provide a pathway in becoming the part of this community. The only important thing is to believe, have patience and keep going!

My Motivation For Outreachy?

I came to know about the Outreachy platform from a classmate who is a FOSS contributor. I researched more about it and was really fascinated to jump into this world. My first step was to fill the initial application form which was a theoretical form about my background and eligibility. Next, I was supposed to make contributions.

First Contribution!

After scrolling through the StoryBoard of OpenStack, I found one bug and decided to work on it. The bug was to "Deprecate "uuid" parameters to python calls when a node is expected". It took me a lot of research and patience to set up on openstack-gerrit and make my first commit. The documentation was very organized and really helpful. The community chat portal "IRC" of Ironic team is also a helpful resource when you are stuck and want to seek help or ask any simple doubt. The reviews and comments from my mentors as well as other OpenStack Ironic community members helped me to resolve this bug. A special thanks to all of them! This is when I realized how things work in the FOSS world, how people collaborate and work in spite of their background, country and time zone. The world is really small! :)
My first contribution strongly motivated me to be a part of this world and experience its depth. In addition to this, the code structure and documentation was fabulous. It was very easy to understand and I desired to inculcate these coding practices in me.

Concisely, my first contribution was the predominant part of my motivation.

The Application Process

    The application process of Outreachy was very simple and straightforward without the involvement of any complicated stuff. There was an application form asking about my skills and experiences with OpenSource Softwares. It also asked me more on the timeline for the project I was applying. I sought help from my mentors Dmitry Tantsur and Ilya Etingof. I came up with a tentative timeline of all the three projects I applied. I completely feel that the application process was very smooth and elegant.

    Mentioned on the website, I was aware that the application form and the contributions are considered for the selection procedure. The time for the results was getting nearer and my excitement was building up. I was not able to contribute further since I had my university exams during the same period. My exams had just ended when the day was on the 6th of May. I was all excited about this day and sat down with the mobile screen open at 4pm UTC which is 9.30pm IST. The time had crossed and the alums page had some server issue at the time. I was still waiting with the increase of butterflies in my stomach and finally, after loading the page, I saw my name in the OpenStack community with a Gmail pop-up of Congratulations email from Outreachy. It was an amazing moment, happiness and excitement hugged me. I got the opportunity to work and be a part of FOSS, OpenStack and mainly Ironic!

    And that was my journey of shying away from coding to getting selected as an Outreachy intern. It was full of learning and interaction with loads more to come! :)

    One small message to all of them who are wondering about Outreachy, a piece of simple advice - "GO AHEAD AND TRY". It is something you will get addicted to and would definitely learn a huge stack of knowledge, experience and skills! Good luck!

- Nisha