Introduction about the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program

According to Google itself

Google Summer of Code is a global program focused on introducing students to open source software development. Students work on a 3 month programming project with an open source organization during their break from university.

Basically, it is a great initiative by Google which helps students across various institutions across the world to learn and enter the field of open-source development with various open-source organizations.

• Organizations vary a lot specifically in terms of their field of expertise. You can definitely expect an organization related to your field of interest (what I mean is all field of interests directly or indirectly related to computer science) here.
• Students can choose an organization related to their interest and their work will have a global impact, meaning you get to work on the products of an organization used by many other developers, so your work will benefit a lot of people. This can be somewhat called as the coolness of open-source!.
• This program is globally recognized and working under this will definitely leverage your skills as well as your recognition.
• Many other perks which do not need much mentioning but definitely are important, are there also like
  • You develop the habit of reading.
  • You ask questions in a better and an informed way and you learn how to communicate effectively with people without wasting anyone’s time.
  • You learn a lot of skills; even if you are working in your field of interest, most likely the company working in that field will be well versed in that area, and you may be overwhelmed at first, but you can learn (I would like to use “devour” more to express my feelings as compared to “learn”) many concepts and ideas, you will really grow and be sort of an experienced person in that area.
• Not so much necessary to mention but you also get a stipend — this time its 3000USD ( if I pass the whole program ) for me.

I planned to participate in this program and searched through the net for necessary how-tos. Some crucial points to I realized are

• Google makes it official for students to write blogs during their GSoC phase ( yeah, that is why I am writing this..sorry ). So if you know someone who has completed his/her GSoC you can read their blogs, that would be best as you will realise their experience and will learn certain things beforehand.

• Reading the student guide of google first should be the top priority, the guide in exhaustive well-written.

  • Understand the different phases of this program, see the timeline on GSoC’s home page, read the guide accordingly and plan further.

In the end I would like to emphasise that do not think of it as something of an “exam to crack” or “scoring high” in this. This is purely a learning experience, if you show your dedication in your work you submit, your enthusiasm, your commitment to this then that should be enough, showing your competitive nature sometimes bugs people off
( this is my thinking only, and people are free to interpret this according to their ideology and even can ignore this completely ).
I will post more blogs under this topic explaining more points under this section. Currently, I have planned to post another blog explaining in detail:

• How to apply.
• Prerequisites, if any?
• Which organization to choose?

Some other small points will also be there.

My journey has started

I planned to participate in this program and searched throught the net for necessary how-tos.

And I also got selected to work in this summer and hence my journey has started.