My first failed attempt at GSoC (The history)
It’s 2018, I’m in class 10th, scrolling YouTube, and I stumble upon Google Summer of Code. I used to watch many videos related to software development back then. I am immediately fascinated by the program (initially, honestly, due to the crazy $5500 stipend it used to offer). I was bummed that students under 18 could not participate, but I decided I had to do it at least once during my undergrad.
Fast forward to early 2023, my 2nd year of B.Tech. This was the first time I actually tried to understand what it takes to get accepted into GSoC. I started watching videos about GSoC, checking out organizations, digging into old proposals online, and getting overwhelmed by the details and technicalities mentioned in those proposals. At this point, I was wading here and there, without any clear goals for my target organization, my choice of tech stack, or even whether I wanted to do GSoC. I didn’t have the programming and soft skills back then to even think about cracking GSoC (I will talk more about my technical journey in the upcoming blogs).
Moving on to December 2023, I was into Full-stack Web Development. Again, I binged too many videos on YouTube about “how to crack GSoC”. But this time, my motivation had shifted. It wasn’t the stipend anymore, but the love for open-source (more about it in the upcoming blogs). I genuinely wanted to fulfill my dream from 5 years ago, contribute something meaningful to the organizations, and put my skills to good use.
Here’s the problem, though: I watched too many videos that were catered to the Indian audience. The problem with that is that most of these videos talk about cracking GSoC as if it is some competition (JEEfication of GSoC), but very few of them actually talk about the fundamentals that must be focused on to get accepted in GSoC; most talk about the tips and tricks. They say you must start very early (by September-October) to get into GSoC, which I feel is untrue. I have seen many people around me getting accepted in just two months. I’d be lying if I said I did not use some of these “tips and tricks.” However, if you focus on the fundamentals, show that you are worth something, and communicate effectively, you will almost definitely be accepted.
So anyway, I started shortlisting organizations according to my tech stack (It was MERN, xD. I didn’t have much choice because I only knew Game Development apart from that). I came across this golden website: gsocorganizations.dev. I selected all the years from 2018 to 2023, ensuring these organizations will return to GSoC in 2024 (not always, but yeah). I selected the relevant technologies, topics, and categories in the filter. I had a list of organizations at this point, namely Rocket.Chat, Zulip, Sugarlabs, and Oppia. I went with Rocket.Chat.
The thing I liked about Rocket.Chat was that their communication system was top-notch. It used to happen on the Rocket.Chat application itself, and they created a channel for each of the project ideas that they listed. They were extremely welcoming to the community. By February 2024, I attended their meetings to learn how to create a Rocket.Chat app. In March, I started contributing to their projects, mainly to EmbeddedChat. I contributed because:
- Every YouTube guru said that you need to have at least 2-3 months of contributions to the organization in which you want to get accepted. I had only 2-3 weeks left before the deadline.
- Rocket.Chat created a leaderboard that showed the number of open PRs, merged PRs, and issues you’ve opened. You can check it out at gsoc.rocket.chat.
I had mixed feelings about the leaderboard because it felt unnecessary. Anyway, I contributed mostly small to medium-sized issues, opened about 7 PRs, and 4 got merged, bringing my ranking to 15 out of 200 contributors. Felt okay about it, but not great, because the top 5 people had like 15 merged PRs and were bound to get accepted.
That year, they had a bunch of AI/LLM integration project ideas. I picked “Chat thread summarizer using AI”. And here’s where I messed up: I didn’t use my time wisely. I focused on contribution too much and didn’t actually work on my proposal until the very last day (I know it's foolish).
April 2, 2024, I woke up early and started building my proposal. Some ideas and implementation details were discussed in this project’s channel, but I barely talked to the potential mentor about the details, and I just started writing independently. I wrote whatever I knew could be relevant to the project, why it could be helpful, the implementation details, the timeline, the future work, etc. Honestly, the proposal wasn’t strong. I missed a lot of details.
Meanwhile, this other guy who joined in March skyrocketed to rank 3 in just days and picked the same project idea. Looking at his contributions, I already knew he was going to beat me. Still, I wanted to at least finish and submit. At 6:30 pm (deadline was 11:30 pm), I submitted my proposal and called it a day.
It’s May 1, 2024, and the results are announced. I knew I wasn’t going to get selected. And guess what… I did not get selected.
That same guy got selected. I reached out to him and asked if he’d share his proposal. He did. And I was blown away. For what seemed like a small project, he had written a super-detailed proposal, covering every corner, but he was right in doing so, trying not to miss any details. I learnt a lot from his proposal and this journey. I just moved on to improve more.
What did I learn?
- Stop binging videos and chasing “tips and tricks”.
- Focus on the fundamentals. Improve tech skills. Contribute. Show your worth. Communicate.
- Proposal vs Contributions? Honestly, depends on the org. If you’re unsure, focus on both equally.
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