Entering the Outreachy World

Mary had a little lambda,
a function pure as snow.
And for every program that Mary wrote,
the lambda was all she needed to know.
Anjana Vakil

And this is how Anjana Vakil’s talk “Mary had a little lambda” begins. (I wonder if you are laughing as well when you read Anjana’s poem.) Watching her talk, I found out she was an Outreachy intern with Mozilla.

So, what is Outreachy? And do they create funny, madly curious programmers in there?

It turns out Outreachy.includes({differentBunch : women && members of other underrepresented groups in technology}) in Free & Open Source Software by collaborating with organizations who create open-source software (like Mozilla, Creative Commons, Apache and the list could go ooon), thus offering them the (amazing, unbelievable, tangible) possiblity of a paid remote internship, which lasts for 3 months.

How I like to think about Outreachy

Once I was day dreaming about how it would be to enter through the dusty door of a wing shop. They would have wings in all sizes and garments and you could choose the appropriate pair for yourself. I imagine the folks from Outreachy as the wonderful creatures who are helping you put on your newly found pair of wings.

Outreachy is interested in your story

From the application process I understood Outreachy is not interested in you CV and they warn you that sneaking it into your initial application will be futile, as it won’t be read. Outreachy is interested in your story, so I felt this is a chance to unveil a glimpse of myself.

After completing my initial application, I told myself I shall not wait for an answer, I shall continue living and not waiting. So when I got the email that my application was accepted I was taken by surprise and extremely happy! I started looking through the multitude of projects, reading their descriptions (which sometimes didn’t lead to more understanding).

After balancing my thoughts on a scale, as regarding what my abilities are, what would fit me, what sounds truly interesting to me, what project I could grasp in a relatively short amount of time, I decided for the project “Offline Support Pages for Certificate Errors” with Mozilla. This project also had a “Don’t panic!” guide, describing the steps to take in order to start contributing, which was like a shiny star in the darkness of the forest. Thank you!

Not surprisingly, I started understanding more and more about what the project is actually about, by making the contributions. I also decided to only focus my attention this one project.

Then the contributing started: taking to the mentors, learning to ask questions, to be precise when you ask questions (a screenshot is worth a thousand words), being afraid less, hesitating less (many mantras), panicking sometimes a bit, completing the final application, brainstorming about how the project could be brought to life.

One of the greatest moments was to see my name on the list with the accepted interns. I get the chills when thinking about it. The magical moment when you see your name there, knowing something special has happened and not quite believing it yet! I was just so delighted!

I can continue looking frantically for the Japanese spirits of the ancient forests on the meadows of Mozilla. I cannot wait for this journey along the Fox of Fire! Here I come!

And my heart glows bright red under my filmy, translucent skin and they have to administer 10cc of JavaScript to get me to come back. (I respond well to toxins in the blood.) Man, that stuff will kick the peaches right out your gills!
Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby