Google Summer of Code (GSoC) offers a multitude of benefits for participants, making it a highly sought-after program for aspiring developers. You can use this program in different techniques to benefit your career as well as your interests. Based on my goals while making the contributor application, these are some of the benefits which I gained from GSoC’22 (as contributor) and GSoC’23 (as mentor).
Real-world Experience
I completed my masters from Georgia Tech (OMSCS program) in Machine Learning Specialisation in 2021 and I was looking for a platform to work on some research project to revalidate my learning. GSoC provided me exactly that through Red Hen Labs. You can read about my contributor application strategy in GSoC’22.
Recognition
After successfully completing the program, you will be recognised by Google with a certificate like this.
Mentorship & Networking
Depending on your organisation, you will get to work with excellent minds of the world. In Red Hen Labs, I got to work with people around the globe with the likes of Mark Turner, Francis Steen, Peter Uhrig and many others. Learning from them is immense.
Resume Building
In this Summer of Code, I became an integral part of the Red Hen Lab organisation. Recommendations from people like Mark Turner adds immense value to my LinkedIn profile.
Community Engagement
It is very important to maintain the engagement with the organisation after GSoC is over. I have become a part of the organisation where I get to drive certain initiatives. I am also working as a mentor in GSoC’23 for the continued work of the project which I started in 2022.
Stripend
Working as a contributor will earn you stipend as well. Though my goal in joining GSoC was not this, but yes who will not value this as a benefit?
Unexpected Outcome
After completing the GSoC, our work turned out to be great for a research paper for linguistics. So me along with my mentors Mark & Austin, wrote a paper in Linguistic Vanguard which is accepted but not yet published.