In the beginning of the year if someone would of told me that in I would make my first contribution to open source I would of laughed in their face. However as of September 6th, 2021 I actually made my first contribution to open source and I feel really good about it.
I would like to tell you more about my experience with Open Source.
My First Experience Contributing to Open Source
I heard about open source for a while now since I've been learning how to code. I was encouraged by my friend who is a professional developer now at GitHub to contribute to beginner friendly projects that are out there like Open Sauced, and Virtual Coffee. She not only showed me how Open Source works but she also found me a beginner friendly issue on the VirtualCoffee.io. What was amazing is that I have received so much support on how to get started with the issue from the Virtual Coffee Community. It made me feel good getting support which gave me the confidence in tackling and fixing the issue.
The issue was regarding re-wording the documentation about the monthly newsletter. It was my very first time making a pull request for an Open Source issue and as a result it was successful. When all the necessary changes were made the maintainers release the updates into production. It was a great feeling for me.
Why it took me so long to contribute?
Honestly I had major imposter syndrome. I stayed far away from Open Source because I didn't feel that my coding skills were worthy enough to contribute to any projects. It really intimidating to put yourself out there and I definitely felt insecure. My friend encouraged me to take on an easy task to ease my way into the open source world.
Final Remarks
I'm very happy that I was able to contribute to Virtual Coffee. It not only gave my experience in creating Pull Request for an open source project but I was able to increase my Git/Github skills which will be valuable in the future.
For those who took the time to read this thank you very much and have a blessed day!
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