[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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