This content provides a comprehensive roadmap and strategic advice for preparing for Google Summer of Code (GSoC), emphasizing practical contributions and learning over superficial efforts, applicable to both students and working professionals.
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20 people got into gck last year from
the 100ex cohort I've personally done
gck twice it's November right now gso
application start in March I think it's
the perfect time to get a high level
road map of gck in this video I'll take
you through how I would prepare for G if
I had to do it all over again today G is
open not just to students but also to
working professionals so irrespective of
where you're looking at this video from
this video is a high level guide to G
2025 without any further Ado let's get
right into it the 202 5 gck road map
let's kick things off with what exactly
is gck there are various definitions
long story short it's a 2 to 3 month
internship that you do with an open-
Source organization an organization
whose code is open source everyone can
read it and Google sponsors it Google
pays for the internship the open source
organization gets a bunch of
contributors that work on the codebase
over the summer why would you want to
get into gck um if you're a student I
think it's the best internship you can
do in your first second third year
debatable third year I think in third
year it might make sense to go onsite
but in your first and your second year
the best internship you can do during
the summer is a gck if you are a working
professional it's now open to you as
well and the only reason I would
recommend it to a working professional
is to make sure you're getting out of
your comfort zone a little bit it's it
gets a little too easy in companies when
you're doing the same task again and
again so if you do Target g-o you'll see
you're getting out of your comfort zone
a little bit trying to read through
other people's codebase and not the code
base you've been working on for like 1
to 2 years now my background I've done
it twice 2015 and 2016 um the first one
was in Gambit I would call it a luck
plus effort based I'll talk about what
this is later U and the things that I
learned this time was going from
JavaScript to typescript U I learned
about the canvas API and this was the
first time I sort of dealt with backends
in node js this was the first time you
know I wrote some backend code so these
are the things that I learned that was
2015 I grew a lot in the next one year
so my next one was purely effort-based
it was a highly competitive or
organization mazilla um and I learned
about real-time communication and
operational transforms over there these
were two things I had a very basic idea
about uh but during the intern I sort of
learned a lot during the second
internship I was also interning at
Amazon so it was like a two timing
internship that I was doing the things
that you get from this is number one the
learning curve is really high especially
if you're doing two interns at the same
time also you get some social credit my
name is still on you know one of the
Mozilla websites which helps when you're
pitching clients on upwork this was one
you know reference I would give fore an
internet AAL you know client to let them
see H by I've worked with International
companies they have my name somewhere
but if you need some more actionable
items my proposals from
201617 and the proposals of all the 20
people and the proposals of a bunch of I
Ry people are all present here so you
can look at the I don't know there like
50 proposals in there look at what
contributions they made how are they
structuring their proposal this is the
most actionable thing that you can get
from this video if I were to start again
this is how I would not to to it um
contrary to very popular belief I wasn't
the best developer in 2014 2015 when I
started when I joined College I started
to learn coding this is one of my first
pool requests that I made I made it as a
naive you know sophomore not even a
sophomore I was in my freshman year
trying to get through you know in an
organization you'll find the link to
this PR in the description but long
story short it was a very ugly
contribution I did not even know what I
was doing I showed it to one of my
seniors he you know I understand what
where his attitude came from when I deal
with a lot of beginners today sort of
don't understand why they did what they
did and this PR is very similar I don't
know why I did what I did I don't even
know what I'm talking about here the
maintainer is clearly telling me I am
not sure this really fixes the issue and
my response is if it is so then the text
is irrelevant they could delete that
part from a file this is this is
beginner syndrome um when the person is
clearly telling you what you're doing is
wrong you're trying to blame it back at
them the text that you have added is
wrong so everyone starts somewhere so
did I my senior just laughed at at my
face which is what I do when people do
these things you pretty much learn by
you know uh breaking your leg so free
free to do it although you know now that
you have people guiding you try not to
do these sort of contributions U look at
the contributions you know it's
basically me not even checking what I'm
checking in I don't understand GitHub
yet I put like a bunch of files in there
so it gets a little infuriating for
contributors and now that a lot of
people are
contributing to try to make sure you're
contributing to actionable items and you
know actually helping them this is good
number one for your selection I mean if
you're making PRS like this forget about
getting selected and number two keeps
the community clean I think open source
communities have had some controversies
in the past let's avoid them um my first
gck I was I was not good I was pretty
average I was just as I said it was luck
and effort based U so I was in the right
organization I'll talk about how can you
get into these organizations but my
learning curve sort of started to Peak
when I got into my first gck that I was
in my second year and that's why I said
it's one of the best internships you can
do in your second and your third year um
because your learning curve Peaks a lot
compared to you know let's say a startup
that's paying you 10,000 rupees that's
making you build websites or you know
very simple websites or throwing grun
work at your face here it's a lot of
Open Source work usually it's good good
work so your learning curve starts to
peek up after my first G I sort of you
know was learning well so my second g-o
I wouldn't say created a substantial
dent in my um learning uh but I think
the first one was great so if you can
get in through luck through to being at
the right place at the right time it can
really help peak your learning curve
since then you know my learning curve
has been stagnant in my first job uh
there was an on-site job in finance but
eventually I got into remote jobs and
you know it peaked again so so long
story short um one hack to make your
learning cve Peak a lot is getting out
of your comfort zone and that will
happen if you get into gck early U the
only problem is that's very hard because
you don't know much so I'm going to talk
about the luck based gsog which frankly
happens from time to time it's like it's
not just me getting lucky a lot of
people get lucky because it's like very
hard to tell who's contributing how much
some organizations are completely empty
no one is contributing
there find dogs that don't have a lot of
contributors um the ones that you see on
the right for example Gambit is the one
that I got into in 2016 my first gck U
the reason was this was literally you
know the one year that they suddenly
popped up they came for a few years did
not come for a few years so people
weren't contributing as much to I I was
like I started contributing very late I
started contributing to Gambit uh when
they came into GX so like February March
around that time so the reason these
luck based organizations work is
because everyone is contributing the
effort based
organizations so that way you know you
can get an easy in um when you're
targeting such organizations another one
might be you know Shaka I don't know how
many of you have heard of it but if you
have worked in video you might have used
it in the past they're also open source
they also came once in the middle so
basically for these organizations just
wait until February in Feb you'll find a
bunch of augs that not a lot of people
are contributing to because they just
randomly came into G this year there
there's not a lot of competition which
is why this is a luck based selection um
usually found after the list is released
and try impressing them and contributing
for the last three months try them and
months April May is you know the
selection so in those 3 months you have
to contribute a lot so if you feel you
don't know much um I would not Target
zulip you know organizations that are
heavily crowded and very well-known
organizations that get selected I would
select an organization that sometimes
comes sometimes not comes for example
processing did not come last year I
would assume not a lot of people are
contributing that this year but if they
come this year they'll be less
competition there so that's the luck
based Org the best or you can get if
you're not yet sure about getting into G
uh to I would you know optimize a lot
for that at the same time I would
optimize my learning organization will
come and you know you will start contrib
in to be able to contribute you should
know some things so make sure you know
whatever your stack is at this point
JavaScript python C++ you're getting
good at it so that when the orc comes
you can actually contribute effort-based
G they this is mostly for people who
know coding um mostly interest based
there might be some you know software
that you really use you want to
contribute to it back in the day it was
jQuery Firefox Homebrew these
organizations U these projects usually
require you know a lot of rust C++
encoding knowledge for example a good
example might be you know Firefox
chromium FFM Peg open CV as you can see
all of them have extremely high number
of selections every year 18 for zulip is
the peak for you know a long time uh
Mozilla when it used to come it was up
to 20 uh ffmpeg 7 chromium up to 20 so a
lot of these augs have a lot of uh
contributors also have a lot of
competition so if you know coding well
if you want to work at Chrome eventually
you know chromium is a good path to get there
there
so that is why you know you might want
to contribute here but don't try
contributing here if you're a complete
beginner you'll get a little overwhelmed
although last year someone got into
chromium he was you know decentish he
was like not great he was pretty good
but like at the same time he
said you know I somehow got in so so
yeah pick and choose uh number of
selections usually in these
organizations are really high which is
why you know just play the odds if you
think you are able to contribute just do
it and you know you might get lucky cool
let's get the timeline next um I think
November 2024 is the last month up
hopefully you've done a lot of hard work
and you know at least one stack well if
you're starting right now with HTML CSS
and JavaScript G is going to be hard so
you know maybe try the year after you
still can but usually the idea is can
no you're very good at a stack very good
is an overestimation you're decent at a
stack you can build projects websites
understand code bases U until 15th
November try to look for an or there are
a bunch of websites that show you the
previously came organizations how many
people got selected their source code is
on their website just open their website
go to their GitHub and start exploring
um until 15th November try to get two to
three organizations that you would like
to contribute to and you know that you
feel have a high probability of getting
in um set up the code base and talk to
maintainers until 1st of December um
talking to maintainers is underrated it
does help if you know you're in their
eye of course it will not help also if
you're pestering them too much so make
sure you're in the middle you're
pestering them just enough so that they
know who you are you're also
contributing and making sure you're not
just talking in their IRC you're
actually making some code changes U
organizations usually get announced
around February that's you know that's
your time to know whether or not luck
was on your side it might happen you
were contributing to two organizations
and none of them came then you have to
start all over again a lot of people
start during this time if I'm being
honest uh if you see last year's video I
would say I don't know 30 40% of the
people started around this time so don't
get too overwhelmed but at the same time
it helps if you're starting early create
a proposal around March not really not
super important your contributions sort
of speak for themselves but you have to
spend like 10 days creating a decent
proposal and lastly keep contributing
until the results come I think after the
proposals have been submitted
organizations are still looking at
contributions people are still trying to
filter out the best crowd so don't just
submit your proposal and sleep keep
working until the final day my top picks
uh for organizations basically if I was
contributing today I would look at a
bunch of hogs that have a lot of people
coming and you know have a lot of uh
selections at the same time the text tag
that I can understand so generally to
beginners or even you know Advanced
people JavaScript and python is the most
recommended stack a lot of projects
there um and easy to understand
languages very commonly available code
bases usually people have worked on them
so you can look at these organizations
code based to start to contribute here
is the list aot most of them have a lot
of selections from last year um that's
how I sort of say picked if I were to
contribute today my first step right now
would be to pick one of these
organizations and start to look at their
code base last year uh we had around 20
selections um this year we're hoping for
50 I don't know it if it'll happen or
not but go through this video there's a
lot of alpha in here it's a 1 hour video
I'm interviewing around 10 students uh
who got into gck last year U it's pretty
informative everyone's journey is
different someone was very close to the
maintainer someone was aggressively
contributing someone was contributing
organization did not come then restarted
contributing and got in so they're like
I would say five people have the
standard path and five people have
extremely weird parts so this video is
super it'll be helpful if you know U you
want to I don't know just look at other
people's experiences who recently got
into gck just last year and their
proposals are also available on the
website Linked In the description I have
a gck playlist it has around 13 videos
most of these are contribution videos so
it'll help you go through code bases
some of these are just Alphas talking to
students things like these super I I
think it's like underrated playlist no
one really watches it but if you want to
U I think this playlist has a bunch of
technical videos that are also pretty
good and then alpha videos as well what
really matters when you're contributing
to G um 70% of it is your contributions
if I'm being honest I wish you know NE
there is some level of nepotism as you
can see sometimes organizations just
select you know whoever there students
sometimes the organizations are
universities they will just select their
students even if they're not
contributing much so there's some level
of nepotism some level of luck 10% to
the proposal maybe 10% to how active you
are in the community but really what
matters is how how many contributions
you've made how high quality of
contributions they are because of course
you might get unlucky with nepotism uh
but there's a very high probability if
you're one of the biggest contributors
you'll pretty much make it in so
proposal and you know superficial things
like talking to the maintenance they do
help but not too much contributions is
what you should focus on and lastly
which org do you want me to contribute
to I've made some contributions in the
past I can almost tell you the
contributions that I make or the report
that I Target a lot of people will flock
there so let me know um if you feel
there's some specific or that's really
hard to set up or you just you just want
to see the setup of one or uh I happy to
make a video on it although you'll only
learn this if you do this yourself uh
handholding isn't the best thing in open
source code bases it's decent if you're
a beginner and you know you're learning
and copy coding but if you're looking at
a code base U and if you're asking
someone for help or you know handholding
that's the same as doing a job and
asking someone to help you out in a job
no one does that right you're getting
paid for it you're supposed to work on
it same thing here so if you're opening
an open source code base make sure you
know you're trying to figure it out
yourself this is the final meme for
today fancing getting into gck which is
I would say you know 90% of the people I
don't think they even open an or or you
know get overwhelmed when they open an
or U looking at road map videos that's
probably you know that's probably again
the 90% lot looking at contribution
videos I think most people filter out
here compare a road map video with you
know a video where I'm contributing
you'll see the number of views are I
think 1/4 or something like that and
lastly contributing yourself that's the
best thing you can do if you really want
to take something from the video
contributing helps if even if you don't
get into gck you learn 10 different
things that will help you out eventually
you're going to join a job
to better just you know take some
accountability and start doing it
yourself if you are a working
professional as I said it gives you a
decent idea of where you stand and there
are students who are getting into these
organizations and you've been working
for 5 Years it'll give you an idea
of you were to step out in the industry
again I'm not saying you would need to
um but if you have to you'll know where
you stand compared to college students
who are currently you know contributing
to similar code basis so that would be
my advice that's all I had for this one
I'll see you guys in the next one bye-bye
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