My Outreachy journey

Outreachy is a three-month paid remote open-source internship organized by the Software Freedom Conservancy. Candidates are mostly women, but organizers encourage trans, non-binary and genderqueer to apply, as well as people whose racial or ethnic identity is underrepresented in the tech. Interns get to work on projects they choose based on their skills and preferences, with the support of mentors and the Outreachy community. For the next round in May, applications start on February 1.

From my perspective (the second month since accepted), this internship might be the most awesome job I will ever have as a web developer, although it is the first time I'm paid for coding. I’m working on a project that allows me to learn new things every day, I have challenging but very interesting tasks and a great mentor to help me with issues I’m struggling with.

The adventure started last September when my boot camp group was talking about what to do when the training ends and a friend mentioned Outreachy. It sounded almost too good to be true, certainly better than any junior developer's first job, so I did a brief research and applied right away. Luckily, there were a few more days to get in selection for this round.

After initial acceptance, the contribution period starts. Candidates must submit at least one contribution for a project of their choosing to be considered for the internship. December 2021 - March 2022 interns work with well-known open-source subjects such as Firefox, Fedora, Debian, Zulip, Wikimedia...

Applicants should pick one or two projects and try to contribute. As I intended to improve my Ruby (on Rails) skills, I chose a couple of projects with that requirement and skipped all tempting JavaScript-only offers.
One of that projects was too complicated to start, I had to change my complete set-up to run it, so I gave up and focused on the one that suited me better, Wikimedia's Programs & Events Dashboard. Later I realized that downsizing was a good thing. It was my first encounter with an actual, complex project, and I think I couldn't handle two of those successfully.

I made three contributions during the applications period and finished fourth after I was accepted.
While waiting for results and still contributing, my biggest concern was my lack of experience. I got the impression that candidates for this kind of internship should know more, and all I had is a finished boot camp, a few months of coding experience in total. I guess everyone has doubts, but, as always, the most important thing is how much effort you put into it.

And in this case, the whole process is a reward itself. Even if I didn't achieve my goal, it would still be very valuable. I learned a lot of new things, no matter how much the project I chose was in line with my knowledge, I had to master several completely new technologies to even start contributing.
I got my code in production, and not just any kind, but for the great project open-source app, used by people around the world.
It might seem insignificant, but for a first-timer, it is amazing - I discovered that I could come up with a fix to a problem, and it is a big deal even if that solution is not the best one.
On top of everything, becoming an open-source contributor is an achievement I am very proud of. I can't imagine a better start!

Who am I? A woman who started coding at 42. An aspiring full-stack developer with a Bootcamp education and about a year of programming experience. A single mother of a teenage girl, passionate about new experiences, new places, new people.
Although I'm pretty confident that I can write high-quality code, blogging in English is probably too much of a task for me. But, let's try anyway.
With college degrees in economics and computer science, I was a journalist and editor in the biggest Montenegrin daily news for almost two decades until the decline in print media motivated me to turn to a more promising occupation.
It seemed that the Outreachy program was just what I needed between the software boot camp I recently finished and my future job, especially because it was open-source-oriented, which is an area I am particularly interested in.
So, for the next three months, I will be working on Wikimedia's project Programs && Events Dashboard as an Outreachy intern.
My profession is a significant part of my life, but there is so much more. I travel or attend live music events whenever I can, currently planning to catch Gojira on a European winter tour (Berlin or Paris, that is the question).
When it comes to everyday activities, my favorites are hiking with my daughter, out-of-town cycling, and spending time with friends. I enjoy SF TV shows, movies or books, good music...