[TOS] FOSS as a study abroad experience
Mel Chua
mel at redhat.com
Sun Feb 6 06:32:28 UTC 2011
I've been pondering this ever since the idea came up at POSSE Doha. Read
the text below, see if it resonates - and then check out the link at the
bottom where I grabbed it from.
To spoil the surprise - I took the first website I found for a search on
"why study abroad" (...some similar phrase, not that exactly) and did a
simple find-replace, stuffing in "FOSS" and "open source" wherever they
referred to "abroad" or "overseas." I was surprised at how few sentences
I had to patch up afterwards to make the whole thing make sense.
I really do wonder if we can use some of the same
structures/tools/marketing for the kinds of things we do. I mean,
students seem to readily sign up to ship off to Italy and France and
China, and faculty members seem to view this as a legitimate (and
challenging) academic enrichment activity.
Just pondering.
--Mel
---
Multiple benefits accrue to those who spend significant time in open
source, and a significant proportion of students see the experience as
an important part of their college years. You’re likely to have fun.
But if you’re also thinking about open source as a way to gain a
critical career advantage, read on. You’ll find that all contribution
experiences are not created equal in the minds of employers.
Employers are looking for graduates who can communicate well with
others, both in person and in writing. They know the importance of
cross-cultural understanding and an appreciation for different points
of view. They gravitate toward students who demonstrate maturity,
initiative, and creativity. All of these assets can be demonstrated
through participation in open source communities, but it’s going to be
much harder to set yourself apart if you’ve taken the easy route.
It’s not hard to find the “easy route”: that’s the one where you go with
your friends into a FOSS project; all the arrangements are made for you
by the school—including the online infrastructure where you hack with
your classmates. In this scenario, it doesn’t matter which project you
work in because all your code will be assigned in class, and possibly
even directly supervised by your professors. You’ll undoubtedly have a
somewhat different experience, but to do the “easy route” is to forego
some of the major advantages of your time in open source.
Consider these ways of standing out from the applicant crowd and finding
your “hook.”
Contribute directly in the infrastructure of the project wherever
possible, even though it makes for a tough first few weeks.
Work with distributed team members rather than with fellow classmates.
You’ll start to understand the nuances of culture and how things work.
Select courses that take advantage of the project you are contributing
to, such as user interface design for GNOME, database performance for
MYSQL, or a study of network authentication methods for an identi.ca plugin.
Seize the opportunity to do an internship, volunteer assignment, or work
locally that leverages the project you're contributing to. You’ll get a
completely different view of the project if you work with your local
community. It may also make you want to go back after college.
Experience things you’ve never done before, like joining a meeting run
entirely in Spanish, or negotiating release deadlines with an upstream
developer. Not every experience is a good one, but a certain level of
discomfort or failure can make you more resilient.
Explore, explore, explore. Make your own arrangements. Keep a blog and
get it on your project's main aggregator. Lurk in IRC channels. Propose
ideas on mailing lists - and implement them. Review patches from other
contributors and mentor newcomers who have questions you can answer.
Open source can be a welcome relief from the rest of your studies, or it
can be the most formative experience of a lifetime. It can be just one
more item on the resume, or it can provide the most colorful examples
in your interview. If you take a few calculated risks, plan in advance,
and take advantage of all open source has to offer, you will become
that “memorable candidate”—the one who truly gets the employer’s
attention. In the process, you will have developed skills and attitudes
that will stay with you for a lifetime.
http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/studyabroadmagazine/2007Spring/why_study_abroad.shtml
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