OSRE Catalyst

Contributing to an open source project is a great way to build a technical portfolio, learn industry tools/practices, and have real-world impact – all while embedded in a collaborative community. The UC Santa Cruz Open Source Program Office (OSPO) wants to support more students on this path, especially those who have been minoritized in tech. We are partnering with an HBCU for a pilot summer program offering, with hopes to expand our reach in 2024.

Through a hybrid (in-person/remote) model, participating students will spend four weeks on the UCSC campus learning about open source, followed by four weeks remotely contributing to an open source project. Participants will be well-supported by our instructional team, as well as their small peer cohort, through community-building and mentorship spanning the full eight weeks.

Pilot Program Mentor & Developer

• Topics: Education, Broadening Participation, Mentorship and Support, Community
• Skills: communication, organization, GitHub/Markdown, basic web programming (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), open source contribution, version control/git workflow, mentorship, teaching
• Difficulty: Novice to Intermediate
• Size: Medium or Large (175 or 350 hours)
• Mentors: Emily Lovell, James Davis

Given that this is a program pilot, your involvement and feedback will directly help shape its future!

Possible tasks:

• Help cultivate a welcoming and supportive learning community
• Support students in completing hands-on activities related to open source contribution (e.g. evaluating potential projects/communities, using git, setting up a development environment)
• Develop technology-specific tutorials to introduce students to languages/libraries/etc. employed by their project
• Offer mentorship around how to navigate documentation, large codebases, and contributor communities
• Share your own input and perspective on what it’s like to be a newcomer to open source!