KDE mentored a lot of students during Google Code-in and I asked some of them to write about their experience.
Arushi writes:
At such a young age working for KDE was like a dream come true. KDE gave me the kind of exposure I have always wanted. It allowed to communicate with different people across the globe and thus enhanced my communication skills. Not only this, I also got to know what opinion other people had about KDE. Surprisingly, all the tasks that I have done are for KDE.
Join The Game, a great program working for a great cause really helped me kick start my work. The very first task that I did was for this organization where in I was required to collect quotes from prominent community members. This task not only encouraged me to converse with people across the globe but also gave me awareness about a magnificent community which encourages free software. Yes, its true :- KDE has awesome technology developed by an incredible community. So, don’t be late Join the Game 😀
My second task that was a survey based task improved my research skills and by all means increased my knowledge and awareness about different non- profit organizations. I was also able to get an inside on what these organizations do for their donating members. Exploring the official websites of the organizations such as FSFE, Mozilla etc. was challenging yet amusing, I really learned lots of new things.
But, the most fun task was to help organize a release party. It was fun and an awesome experience as I got to create different pages and also the opportunity to advertise such a great event. KDE made me realize how much effort and hard work everyone is putting in. I even got the chance of being an amateur blogist 😛 as I wrote two articles for the parties to be organized.
KDE has helped me grow in ways which I can’t even explain. I think I owe a lot to KDE 😉
ravst writes:
The whole idea of the contest is to show to young people what taking part in open source projects fells like. Every contestant gets to choose a task form a HUDGE tasks list, where lot of different organizations put jobs that should be done to improve they projects.
I signed up for the event mainly to earn some money and of course also to learn something and gain valuable experience, but when I started working on my first task, everything changed. I felt something I’ve never felt before; I was happy because I knew that what I was doing wasn’t just another school project, which would be marked and forgotten. It was something that could help people. To be honest, it wasn’t anything spectacular, but even though it felt great to be helpful. My first task was to write subtitles for a You Tube video about a pearl environment. It was very satisfying to see those subtitles being uploaded seconds after I’ve sent them to my mentor. Another task I relay enjoyed doing was dividing a big audio file into smaller ones, containing step by step instructions that would be used in a GPS application for a mobile phone. Thanks to the GCI contest I realized what it is like to take part in an open-source project. Believe me, it’s great.