Experience in GCI this year(2018)
Hi everyone! I am Mudit Arora, a 16 year old boy from Delhi, India who loves coding, learning web development, and looking forward to do more things. It’s my first year participating in GCI (Google Code-In) and i am enjoying a lot!
For those, who don’t know what GCI is?
Google Code-in (GCI) is an annual programming competition hosted by Google Inc. that allows pre-university students to complete tasks specified by various, partnering open source organizations. Students that complete tasks win certificates and T-shirts. Each organization also selects two grand prize award winners who will earn a trip to Google’s Headquarters located in Mountain View, California.
Currently, there are 27 participating organizations this year including Drupal, Sugar Labs, etc. Also, there are total 5 categories of tasks i.e Coding, Documentation & Training, Outreach & Research, Quality Assurance, and Design.
Introduction
Since, this is my first year, so i don’t have much experience in GCI, so i was confused in starting tasks, but now i know how to do task efficiently. Honestly speaking, it was somewhat sometimes frustrating while doing tasks, like you do a task giving your best and still the mentor doesn’t approve the task. I’ll tell you about all the faces i have experienced till now.
I am not saying that GCI is completely dissatisfying, but it all depends on the student how they work. It’s a very good platform to showcase your talent.
The Good Things that I have learned
As I told you earlier, it’s my first time in GCI, i was excited when the contest started, as i’ll get to know what will I do, how will I do, it will tell me about my capability, what type of tasks there will be, etc. I have taken Science stream with Computer Science (C++) so i thought i will mostly do coding tasks as it will be easy for me, but i was wrong. I claimed my first beginner task, the task was to write a program in which when we write “https://github.com” then only it will go to GitHub website because sometimes using ‘http’ don’t go to GitHub website. I don’t know, maybe you’ll think me i am crazy, it took me a whole week to do this task, thanks to my mentor who gave so much time (actual deadline was 3 days). I took my Computer Science’s teacher to do this task, else i could not do that.
My first task taught my first lesson ‘always try starting with easy task’.
As days passed by, i did more tasks, yes it took me time but not like my first task haha. Honestly speaking, i am too lazy, i’ll tell you why: I claimed one task in which i had to write a blog on Google Colab, i had 3 days to complete that task, on my last moment i did the task, and sent for review, thankfully they accepted my approval.
The second lesson I learnt ‘Always try to finish your task as fast as you can’
I always give a thanks comment to my mentors, because I fell this ‘thanks’ will tell them they are a good mentor who supported their students in every possible way. Also, gratitude.
The Bad experience for me
Unfortunately, this happened in one of my task. I claimed a task in which i had to write a blog on ‘Testing Methodologies’ I needed to include some libraries as examples, I did around 10–15, but the mentor told me to remove non useful libraries, it was really confusing for me to remove, i took me around 5 days to complete that task, and then finally my mentor accepted it. It was really frustrating as well as sad for me because i was giving my precious time to do task and not getting any result. I am not saying the problem was the mentor, it was me who did this and I know what i did.
Conclusion
As GCI is coming to an end, i have experienced a lot, and learnt a lot. It’s not only about winning, it’s all about learning new things, get to now things. I’ll surely participate next year too so i could to much better, more tasks than this year. Also, i’ll like to tell all the viewers who are eligible to participate, you must! Don’t ask me why, just experience.
This task was completed as a part of Google Code-in 2018.
View Contest: https://codein.withgoogle.com/
Sugar Labs @ Google Cod-In: https://codein.withgoogle.com/organizations/sugar-labs/
