How I got into the Outreachy Program

Are you trying to find an internship? Look no farther than the Outreachy program!

📖Background

I'm Cynthia Iradukunda from Rwanda, a recent graduate from African Leadership College(ALC) with a degree in Computing. I am very passionated about software development and cloud computing; my tech stack consists of ReactJS, AWS, ExpressJS, and HTML/CSS. If you have any opportunities to share or grow my expertise, send them my way 😎.

My journey to open source started last year when I got accepted for the She Code Africa Contributhon program. During the program, I contributed to Jenkins documentation by adding code examples and online help. The flexibility, diversity, and experience I gained from industry experts while contributing, encouraged me to explore for further opportunities.

🔥Outreachy Program

Outreachy is a three month internship program which is organized by Software Freedom Conservancy for the people who are underrepresented in tech. It is a paid and remote internship which is conducted twice a year from May to August and December to March. The application consists of two main phases: initial application and contribution.

During the initial application, You respond to essay questions to demonstrate how you are underrepresented in your community. When writing your essays, be sure to read the prompt thoroughly and incorporate statistics to support them. Upon passing that phase, you go to the contribution phase, which lasts one month.

During this phase, you choose one or two open source projects to contribute to in accordance with your skills such as design, coding, or technical writing. It's critical to keep in mind that quality counts more than quantity when making contributions. Additionally, if you want to be chosen, collaborating with other applicants and communicating with your mentors are equally essential as contributing.

💎Faith, Honesty, and Courage

If I hadn't stayed true to my core values, I wouldn't have gotten an opportunity to be part of the Outreachy program. Only 64 interns were chosen this round out of 1378 applicants, demonstrating how competitive the program is.

Faith

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Martin Luther King, Jr

It is so easy to feel like you can't be among those 64 interns due to your level of experience, skillset or background; I also experienced the same. However, by shifting my mindset to "How can I be one of the 64 interns?" I was able to start and submit my application.

Honesty

"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." - Thomas Jefferson

Being truthful to myself and the people around me is vital to me. The initial application's numerous essay prompts can be overwhelming if you aren't used to writing essays. However, resist the urge to plagiarize other people's stories and strive to create your own. The satisfaction you get when you know you submitted an original application is encouraging. It will also save you a lot of time to choose a project during the contribution phase based on what you are skilled and passionate about.

Courage

"Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill

My initial application was rejected twice. However, I did not give up, I kept seeking feedback from past outreachy interns. Therefore, when you get rejected, learn from it and keep trying. Don't be afraid to ask or seek for support during the application process.

👋 Final thoughts

As part of the Outreachy program, I am contributing to the ChRIS project, a Red Hat project, by consolidating and making reusable various react UI components from two user interfaces. My mentors are kind, accessible, and knowledgeable. I can't wait to start sharing my 12 month experience.

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