My journey to GSoC 2021
How I heard the term GSoC(Google Summer of Code)
Every student starts to dream their undergraduate life starting from the very first moment when they selecting to the University including myself. If I went back to time 2018 September the moment I selected to the University of Colombo School of Computing to read for the Computer(UCSC) Science degree program.
In Sri Lanka, Government universities start after a minimum of 1–1.5 years after doing the Advanced Level examination (GCE A/L’s) and students are very much pleased to learn some background knowledge before they enter into the university at that time. I had some hope that I can enroll in a Computer Science course at UCSC. As usual to that procedure, I started doing CIMA and learn Java, Web development before I entered the University because my background knowledge in CS is at a lower level since I never wish to do CS but I had to 😊. After few more months (2019 Feb) we started our academic work and suddenly got to know about a competition called Google Summer of Code(GSoC) by a post which includes 2019 GSoCers including our seniors.
Got an interest and motivation
So, I was wondering what is that competition. For computing students like us, Google is our dream place to work and anything related to Google took our eyes in a second. I worked on searching on Google what is this competition and got some basic knowledge of what is GSoC and all about wherever I learned git, DevOps. Later I realized (in the previous proposal period and this year’s proposal period) that I’ve learned nothing but as a newbie to the program, I got an interest to do this somehow before I left the university. So basically, my motivation is to complete one GSoC before I left the university.
Met knowledgeable people and took a piece of advice
And time passed, it comes to the end of GSoC 2019. Fortunately, I met one of our senior ayyas, at one of our university meetups who has completed GSoC successfully. Basically, that’s the moment I realized the real nature of the competition and how tough it to get selected for a project in GSoC. At the same time, he gave some advice about the contributing culture of an organization, how to prepare a project proposal, how to contribute to a project, how to select an organization and how to engage with the community and all. With that, I start contributing to the projects whereby search from the archives provided by Google. I chose Scorelab, SugarLabs as my primary organizations in 2020. And start working on which project I am suited to.
Started contributing and knew the competitiveness
One good advantage of being an open-source contributor is new opportunities to learn something new. By referring to past projects, I have learned a lot. Such as documentation, Code Quality, Frameworks, and Workflow. All of a sudden contribution makes you rich to earning respect in the community. So, I started contributing by forking the repositories and raised some issues, and do some pull requests. I have managed to complete near 10 contributions including issues and PRs in 2020. But at the same time, it’s not only us. There are a lot of students who contribute to the same project as you. It’s really competitive and you have to be smarter and more fluent enough about your project domain with respect to others. That is why more as early as you start contributing matters a lot.
Felt the summer
When Google announced the GSoC 2020 proposal submission period, luckily, we got a long vacation due to the covid-19 from the university as well. Also, for UCSC undergraduates’ sophomore year this the perfect year to do the GSoC where you can manage your academics and GSoC well. So, I have pretty much enough time to prepare my proposal and do background research and build a prototype where normally we haven’t able to do such work in the proposal submission period. In Sri Lanka, summer is just another study period where foreign country students have their vacations. So actually, it feels like a real summer for me and as a student, I’m pretty much satisfied with my progress in GSoC 2020 proposals and submitted it 3 weeks prior to the deadline.
Frustrations & Commitments
If you asked me, what is the hardest time period in GSoC, for me it is the time between the application review period and announcing accepted students where it spans nearly a month. That month you should have been more like an intermediator. Don’t be too positive or too negative about your applications. Why I said that you should have some luck as well to get selected into GSoC. In GSoC 2020, accepted students announced on the 4th of May 2020 and I got rejected 😔. It is one of the biggest frustrations in my life with the commitment that I put into this competition throughout 6 months and felt like I got nothing for myself. But that ayya who gave me advice in the first place gave me an inspiring speech about how he got selected into his GSoC. It makes some sort of a relief for me (20%). I went to GitHub after 3 weeks of results were published. Recalling all these incidents makes me laugh to myself now. However, commitment matters a lot in this competition. Not to this, all the things in life happens for a reason. Now I understand in GSoC 2020 I was never a perfect candidate. I have done lots of mistakes and now is the time to correct them all. And I prepared for the GSoC 2021.
Came back strong
With all, GSoC 2021 announced with lots of updated rules. Stipend amount, duration of the competition reduced by half. I followed up the same procedure with previous GSoC experience. Most importantly, I am so much stronger compare to the previous year’s GSoC. This year I selected a project where I can put 100% of my skills, research interests which are the fields of Computer Vision and Image Processing, and Machine Learning. I did so many quality contributions including issues and PRs and most of them were accepted without a doubt. I did my homework well. If I told you how successfully I did this time some students put messages and ask lots of questions from me and treated me as a mentor in Gitter channels. Finally, I get selected this year. Two years of hard work paid off. What else makes you happy when you have kind of this mail in your mailbox in the morning.
Winter is coming
Lots of students think that selecting a GSoC project makes you a perfect GSoCer. No, it’s not. It is just the beginning of another mountain of questions. A reasonable amount of students are unable to complete GSoC every year. Where you have to tide your belt to fight with the code and make yourself ready to complete the GSoC. That is why it is really important to select a project where you can put your 100% of skills and commitment as I mentioned earlier. Hope to put more experience after completing this year’s GSoC since I too a debutant to share my experience on this topic. Also, for me, it is my 3rd year at University where I have to balance more than 8 subjects with GSoC. It feels like winter is coming. Let’s see how it goes 😃.
It’s your time
I’m not saying anybody can do GSoC. But I am good to say If you are patience enough, have sound knowledge on programming and strong enough to face all these situations with your end. It’s a package. You are a person who can apply for GSoC. So go ahead and prepare yourself. Take a bright side of my story and hope this article will a helpful source for that.
