Farewell, Outreachy!
My Outreachy internship has ended. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. The last three months have been an amazing experience, all thanks to my mentors Sage Ross and Jonathan Morgan for giving me this opportunity and their constant support throughout! A few of the things I achieved while working on the Programs & Events Dashboard:
User Research
Conducted a user research with the Wikimedians who organize media campaigns and received feedback on the current dashboard as well as ask for future possible improvements they would like to see.
Uploads Tab
Implemented three different view layouts, namely: List, Tile and Gallery, for viewing the uploads according to personal preferences and use case.
Added pagination and filtering on the uploads.
Displayed additional metadata fetched from Commons API.
Designed mockups for UploadComponent which further displays more information such as categories, usage on different wikis, description etc about an individual upload.
Editors Tab
Added a count for the total uploads made by an editor in that particular program and redirecting that to a pre-filtered uploads view.
User Profile Pages
Displayed the recent uploads made by a user on their profile pages.
Although my internship has ended, I hope to keep contributing to open source in my free time! Right now, I am back at university attending classes and trying to figure out the next steps from here. If you wish to apply in the next round of Outreachy, the application period for the December 2018 to March 2019 Outreachy internships will open September 10. Most Outreachy mentoring communities and internship projects will be listed by September 3. You can check out the timeline and further information on the website. I’d like to share my personal observations and tips regarding the application procedure.
1. Choose your project wisely. This is an important step, so take your time to figure out the project you are most comfortable with and then start contributing to it. Most projects are listed a week before the application procedure actually opens.
2. Contact your mentors. If you are stuck somewhere, don’t hesitate to seek help from your mentors or other people in the project community through the mentioned communication channel.
3. Contribute. Contribute. Contribute. According to me, this is the most important part of your application as only applicants that make at least one contribution are eligible to be accepted as an intern. The strongest applicants make multiple contributions throughout the application process, including after the application deadline.
4. Take time to draft your proposal. Have a look at previously accepted proposals and draft your proposal accordingly. Update it as you make contributions. Ask for feedback on your proposal draft from your mentors. Sometimes, an organization requires you to submit a proposal to them apart from the one you are already submitting through the Outreachy dashboard. Make sure you submit at both the places.
5. Start early. Don’t wait until the last week to start your application. You can save your application and update it along the way. Apart from the project, you should know about your fellow applicants. If you feel that there are already a lot of strong applicants in that project, I’ll advise to move to another project. That’s why I will suggest to start contributing early and have a better understanding of the codebase of the project you wish to apply to.
6. Don’t lose hope. If you don’t get selected, don’t give up. If someone doesn’t respond to your query, don’t give up. Outreachy takes place twice a year! I couldn’t participate in the previous round but I made sure to give my best in the next round and here I am! Goodluck :)
