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Nick Shattuck
Nick Shattuck

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Am I too green to contribute to open-source?

I am really interested in contributing to the open source community, particularly with Mozilla. A little about me:
I am a CS student with about 1.5 years from graduating. Mozilla is my "dream job", but I am merely a beginner in the front end scene. I'd like to get ahead early but I have hesitations. Firstly, I only learned HTML and CSS this year, and I feel like I am just now starting to understand how to use both technologies. I am also new to JavaScript, most of my knowledge of it comes from freecodecamp's curriculum and a few very basic projects I have done in my own time. I seem to pick it up fairly quickly.My learning pace is a little slower than I would like, but it's largely due to balancing school life and personal projects.
I attend meetups, I read just about any book on programming I can afford to get my hands on, occasionally solve code challenges on Leetcode (which I find boring but it's how you land a job), but even with all this, I feel like I am just not "there yet". Any thoughts or pointers would help!

Top comments (2)

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bizzycola profile image
Bizzycola

I think if you can find an open source project you think you have the skills to contribute to, you should go for it!

If you keep thinking you're not there yet, you might go down that road for a long while. I started coding when I was about 9 years old, I've got years of experience, I've built functioning sites, games, apps, etc, and I still have that mindset of "I'm not good enough to contribute", and as such I've yet to really contribute to any open source projects.

I'm trying to change that and I've been looking around a bit for stuff I can contribute to! So don't end up like me, start early and I imagine you will build up the confidence to work in bigger projects as you go along.

Best of luck!

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tacomanick profile image
Nick Shattuck

Thanks! I started coding for myself about 4 years ago. I have that "progress not perfection" mindset and love to learn, but my fear would be getting that first assignment and being totally lost. I struggle to get myself out of that "this is beyond you" mentality. I think the only thing to do is start looking, and if I get lost, just ask for help.
Thanks for the encouragement!