DEV Community

Harshil Agrawal
Harshil Agrawal

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at harshil.dev

My GitHub Campus Expert Journey and how you can become one

I've been asked a lot about my GitHub Campus Expert journey and how can one become a GitHub Campus Expert. This is an attempt to answer those questions and express my gratitude to this amazing program.

While browsing through the GitHub Education website, one day I landed on the GitHub Campus Expert webpage. I skimmed through the webpage and understood that this program will help me start a community on my campus, and so I hit the Become a Campus Expert button.

Before applying to the program you need to verify that you're a student and for that you need to either upload your institute ID or sign-up with your institute email id. Once you've been verified you can proceed to the next step which is filling up the initial application. I followed the same procedure and I got selected for the next phase.
Did I mention that once you're verified as a Student you get $100000 worth of amazing developer tools and services to learn and improve your skills! Check it out here.

The second phase of the program is the training, where you work with amazingly designed modules which helps you to be a better community leader. To be honest, it were these modules that helped me gain a clear vision of what a community is, how to plan and host events and what skills I need to work on to be an effective leader. If you complete the modules with the same enthusiasm you started it with, you're going to be a great leader.

Once you've completed the modules, the next step is to wait and be patient. Your submissions undergoes a detailed review. Unlike any other program, the review team very thoroughly reads and reviews each and every submission and provide you feedback to improve it. My application was also reviewed and a very helpful feedback was provided. I worked on my feedback, it again went for a review, the submissions were accepted and vola! I was just one step away to become a GitHub Campus Expert.

It was October 2, 2018, the day I officially became a GitHub Campus Expert. It was that day when a call with the amazing Joe Nash (he was Program Manager at that time) was scheduled. The call was great, after the chat, he showed me the on-boarding process. I created my GitHub Campus Expert profile, got added to Slack, and I was a GitHub Campus Expert! πŸ₯³

I already had an event planned which I proudly hosted as a GitHub Campus Expert. I also got to organize a Hacktoberfest event with Daniel Phiri (GitHub Campus Expert Alumni). Daniel helped me a lot during the process and was a constant support.

As a GitHub Campus Expert, I got a lot of opportunities to help and inspire people, talk about open source and meet some great folks. I did my first booth crawl

organized the first Flutter Bootcamp gave my first DevFest talk and also my first international talk! I organized more than 40+ events/meetups/workshops in just 6 months impacting more than 200 people!

The program has been really helpful and inspiring. Whenever and wherever I faced an issue, I knew there were 100+ other GitHub Campus Experts there to help me out. The program makes you feel like a huge family you have, that is spread out to different parts of the world.

I would like to thank Joe, Lieke and all the GitHub Campus Experts to be a constant inspiration and support! You folks are amazing! πŸ’–

About the program
The GitHub Campus Expert program is an amazing opportunity to help your local community. The program focuses on your local community and helps you to build and grow your local community. This is not an ambassador program unlike others, the program actually focuses on supporting you to help you grow your community.
By becoming a GitHub Campus Expert you don't represent GitHub nor you can be called as a GitHub Employee.

I hope I was able to answer a few questions students have about the program. Below are the answers to the few that I always come across about the program.

  • What should I write in my application?
    Honestly I don't have an answer to this. The best advice I could give is be honest with your application, you know your community better.

  • I am not sure what I should write in my application, may you please give me some points?
    I am afraid if you don't know why you want to be a GitHub Campus Expert, you're not ready to be one. Take some more time and work on it.

  • What prerequisites/qualities to become a GitHub Campus Expert?
    There are no such prerequisites/qualities. Personally, I believe you should be motivated enough to help people and grow your community.

  • My application got rejected. Can I reapply?
    Yes you definitely can!

  • My application got rejected. When can I reapply?
    If your application got rejected you can reapply in the next semester i.e after 6 months. But please don't let this stop you to contribute towards the community. Use this time to build and grow your community, you'll get a great experience before joining the program and will know the roles and responsibilities of a community lead.

  • My application got rejected, what should I do to improve myself, so that I get selected the next time?
    If your application got rejected don't worry, you're not the reason. Sometimes there are so many applications that it becomes really difficult to shortlist many of you. There might also be a huge probability that someone from your institute is already in the training.

  • I am in the training phase and working on the modules. Could you please share your submissions?
    I am sorry but I won't. The modules are designed to help you become a better community leader and improve your skills. I don't want to take away this learning opportunity from you.

If you still have any more questions, please feel free to ask them.

Top comments (14)

Collapse
 
nouran551 profile image
Nouran Waleed

This article is so helpful πŸ‘Œ

Collapse
 
harshil1712 profile image
Harshil Agrawal

I am glad that you found it helpful! Thank you for reading it.

Collapse
 
natashamills profile image
Info Comment hidden by post author - thread only accessible via permalink
NatashaMills

Oh, I would like to learn a lot to be a GitHub Campus Expert, so thank you for the tips and recommendations you gave. But now I should prepare for my exams with studyhippo.com/ to pass it and start to learn here. There are college essay examples, so I think it is a good resource.

Collapse
 
calmesam01 profile image
Sanyam Sareen

My submission has been viewed by them and they have closed my PR after giving me some edits to make. I just did that and opened the PR again. How long will it take for them to get back to me as the first time it took them close to 3 months?

Collapse
 
nikhil5555 profile image
Nikhil5555

πŸ‘Œ

Collapse
 
iamsuryakant profile image
Suryakant Thakur

This is article is very useful..Thanks for sharing.

Collapse
 
anubhav_madhav profile image
Anubhav Madhav

Thank You so much!!

Collapse
 
johnphamous profile image
John Pham

This is awesome!

Collapse
 
harshil1712 profile image
Harshil Agrawal

Thank you! πŸ˜„

Collapse
 
veereshbv profile image
Veeresh B V

Now i have got Student Developer Pack ,and I am using it
whats next ?
please reply me

Collapse
 
abhishekkumar201005 profile image
abhishekkumar201005

Harshil Sir,I need some help regarding GitHub campus ambassador 2021-August
Send me ur gmail I have lots of query

Collapse
 
rishabhraghwendra profile image
Rishabhraghwendra18

How you managed to organize 40+ events in 6 months ?

Some comments have been hidden by the post's author - find out more