Hey everyone,
These last few weeks of my summer break made me realize that I should probably try finding and completing an internship — even if it was just for 2 weeks.
But while searching around and talking with Claude about internships, it suggested something even better:
🙌Contributing to open-source projects.🙌
Now, I know many developers reading this probably discovered open source years ago 😅
But for me, this was something completely new and honestly really exciting.
Finding My First Project
I started digging deeper into this whole open-source world and quickly realized there are actually some really beginner-friendly websites to get started.
These were the two websites Claude suggested to me:
And that’s when I found:
It’s a really neat web app that helps students study physics using interactive simulations and visualizations.
As a physics student myself, this honestly felt like the perfect project to contribute to:
- I could improve my coding skills
- understand some physics concepts visually
- and contribute something useful at the same time
Actually Making My First Contribution
I knew this project wasn’t some massive large-scale application or anything like that.
But honestly, that’s the whole point.
You can’t start huge immediately.
Every small contribution matters.
So I got started:
- Forked the repository
- Cloned it locally
- Opened it in VS Code
- Installed Claude Code
- Started identifying issues
And this part genuinely surprised me.
I simply asked Claude to help me make my first contribution.
Within seconds, it generated a CLAUDE_REPORT file that contained:
- bugs ranked by priority
- difficulty levels
- possible causes
- and even suggested fixes
Claude continues to amaze me yet again 😍😅
I started tackling some low-priority issues one by one and managed to fix 4 issues within my first hour before sending my first pull request.
What I Fixed
The issues themselves were small, but they were actual real-world fixes:
- Incorrect labels
- Flexible package versions
- Unit fixes
- Mathematical calculation corrections
Nothing revolutionary 😅
But that’s exactly what made this experience feel approachable for me.
The Best Part
The satisfaction you get from:
- adding changed files
- committing them
- pushing your changes
- opening a pull request
- and then seeing it get merged
…it’s honestly hard to describe.
And of course, who can forget the beautiful green contribution boxes on GitHub 😅
Seeing those slowly appear somehow makes everything feel more real.
Final Thoughts
I’ll definitely continue contributing to more open-source projects now — especially after realizing how enjoyable and beginner-friendly it can actually be.
I mainly wanted to document my first step into the open-source world and hopefully help other beginners realize that contributions do not have to be huge to matter.
Sometimes even small fixes are enough to get started.
And honestly… starting is probably the hardest part.
You’ll definitely be hearing more from me about open-source contributions — especially when I find another fun project to work on 🚀
See you guys!
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