😍 my DREAM project 😍

I wish upon a 🌟 that I fish a project not so far (from my capabilities).

In other words, the imposter syndrome is hitting hard. Going through all of these project evaluations and contributing documents, I’m so nervous to actually contribute. Even though I see issue and bugs that I can help with, the anticipation and the nervousness of taking the first few steps to engage in the project worry me. I know these feelings will soon quell with time and especially exposure to my final selected software, so hopefully in a couple weeks I can report that I’m not as nervous!!

Anyways, to get back on track, I’m not picky with my project. I hope it’s something I can understand quickly and that it’s something I have been or could use consistently. In an ideal world, I hope it’s a learning platform or something educational (especially for beginners and/or the youth) because I love the concept of teaching and spreading knowledge. I’d also love to do something UI or front-end development related as I feel like I can contribute a great deal with my knowledge in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Besides that, I ultimately want to make at least 1 meaningful contribution. There geninunely is no scope, it could even be a bug on the site or a typo, but I’d love to visibly see the change I made on the software. It’s kind of a simple goal right now, but I’d love to know that my skills have contributed to something.(For the most part in my CS classes, the projects/assignments were typically put to the side and never seen again).

Nonetheless, I know that everyone always has something to teach someone else, so I’d love to keep expanding my goals the more experience I gain with contributing. Though there may be many hurdles… I can list a few:

• not following the correct formating
• spending too much time triple checking any PRs I make
• letting my fears get the best of me
• thinking I can’t contribute meaningfully
• facing a rejection of my PR

I know that it will take many mistakes to actually feel confident to make solid contributions. And knowing myself especially (an extreme overthinker), I am going to put in the effort, study up on the repo, and look at examples to do my best to help my project rather than cause more problems. Ultimately, however, my goal beyond contributing is ensuring that I have a satisifed and successful group. Knowing that we can work together and be able to communicate concerns or good things will make me feel super successful! I hope to contribute as much as I can to my group, whether it be moral support, organization, or more technical skills. So to counter my previous cons list with a pros list, I think I can help contribute with my knowledge in:

• web development (html, css, js, php)
• object oriented programming (java, c++)
• project workflows/methodologies (agile, waterfall, etc)

This might be false confidence as of now, but I am extremely adaptable know that everything will be great!!

my 🤏🤏🤏 tiny tinyyyy contributions

I think I’m getting used to the flow of making simple contributions. I have mainly focused on making contributions to Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, and the class’s weekly blogs or sites. In actively trying to find things to fix, I find myself seeing more mistakes which is crazy. I don’t tend to normally notice any major bugs or broken links, so I find that this practice helps me to be more detail-oriented and observant. Not only that but I am having a good time being nitpicky. It feels like trying to find a needle in a haystack but it’s a challenge that is fun…? Okay, I’m just rambling now, but regardless I enjoy this activity as I’m able to actually use my super fan knowledge in books and movies and make a contribute to a Wikipedia page that got something wrong. Or I’m able to stalk my hometown and reminisce on the old stores there used to be.

As of now, I feel pretty confident with reporting issues and making the small changes on Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap, so now the big challenge is stepping out of my comfort zone and doing something different. Now I need to focus on solving current issues on the class site (not adding to them only) and maybe seeking other foss projects to engage in. I’m glad I’m starting very small as with time I’ll feel more confident to actually take on the role of changing code.

⭐ Star Contribution: I am most proud of my Wikipedia contribution to my favorite movie. It was so menial but I loved being a smartass and saying “well actually 🤓☝️ this was an important fact.” ⭐

ai boooo 🍅🍅🍅

In class we continued to work on project evaluations, and though already interesting, it got EVEN more interesting with the incorporation of AI. This time around we used an AI, specifically Gemini, to evaluate our project’s website/repo. Though Gemini did give a good summary of what each project was about, it did really bad when giving specific numbers or links to pull requests/issues. It made a lot of assumptions and rounded off really weirdly. I would say that though it was correct in some aspects, it’s accuracy was pretty low. Thus, to some degree I could rely on AI for a quick summary, however, I ultimately believe that a more thorough evaluation must be done manually especially as I’ll be able to get a better feel for it myself.

Course Reflection and Thoughts

Really excited to get into the nitty gritty details of getting a team, being stuck with the team, and finding a project! It’s like everything is becomming a reality and that’s so exciting!!