Google Summer of Code Mentor and Org Admin Perspective

The first phase of the project is the community bonding phase. This is where the student and other mentors come together to lay out the plan for the project. It is important to set expectations and ensure that the student is well aware of what will take place and also made to feel welcome.

Parichay Barpanda was the student and he was super awesome from the get go. The project he was working on was the Gitlab Branch Source Plugin. More can be found here: jenkinsci/gitlab-branch-source-plugin

From the mentor side it was myself and Justin Harringa. Justin was just amazing throughout this project and I seriously could not have done this without him. He was encouraging, empathetic and just all around great. I would gladly serve with him again.

We laid out our plan and guidance and got to work.

The first evaluation was quickly upon us and Parichay was ready! The work he put in was nothing shy of amazing. We did our 1st demo and he really rocked it. A video of that demo can be found on : Youtube

There was not much time to rest before we realized that phase II end was upon us but Parichay was ready. Again, he nailed it.

That demo can be found here

We had our final evaluation and at this point Parichay was seasoned. He was getting issues assigned to him, working on little bug fixes and setting his roadmap for features. He absolutely blew Justin and I away.

Parichay’s final evaluation demo can be seen here

At the conclusion of the final demo’s, Justin and I met and went over Parichay’s final evaluation. At this point we had met twice a week for several months, we have reviewed code daily, we had community involvement and most of all we had seen Parichay grow into a seasoned software developer.

Justin and I were without a doubt passing Parichay on his entire body of work. I am actually tearing up typing this because I am so proud of Parichay.

Being an org admin for the 2019 Google Summer of Code project for the Jenkins organization was truly rewarding and couldn’t have been accomplished without the help from Oleg Nenashev, Martin d’Anjou, Jeff Pearce and Lloyd Chang.

As an org admin we handled issues with mentors, community members and disagreements involving work. These items were only a few and as a team we handled them accordingly.

We regularly met to discuss and plan. Coordinating and dealing with a project like Google Summer of Code is no small feat but this team made it super easy and I am so thankful for them and all that I learned.

In looking back at this experience I am so grateful for the opportunity I was given. This was such a rewarding experience to not only be able to mentor but also be an org admin. Not only will I be back next year (we are already in the planning stages) but I highly encourage people reading this to consider joining. You will not be disappointed.

I am so thankful for all the students, mentors and fellow org admins. Your dedication to open source is so valued. You showed and continue to show what this project is all about, and that is being welcoming, open and transparent. Helping people grow as individuals while learning skills is what I love about this community.

Thank you to everyone and I hope your futures are bright!