Outreachy Blog - Week 1

I’ve been wanting to contribute to open source for a while. But I just couldn’t. Should I just randomly choose repositories to contribute to? Maybe I should contribute to projects I’m familiar with? Or perhaps, I should look for a match in my skills. While there’s a way out of these questions, in reality I just couldn’t carve out the time.

Hi, I’m Divyanka, and I’m a Computer Science Major graduating this summer.

I’d known about Outreachy for a while. In fact, I’d contributed to an Outreachy project in the summer of 2021 (that’s exactly 3 years ago) but withdrew because I took up other commitments for the summer. Outreachy seemed like an interesting program because it provided mentorship (and a stipend!) to contribute to an Open Source project. I’d been a little curious about OCaml, I had heard about it as a powerful elegant language. So when I applied to Outreachy this time around, I only applied to one project - under the OCaml organization; and got in!

I’ll be working on the “Running OCaml Exercises Everywhere” project under my mentors Cuihtlauac Alvarado, Shakthi Kannan, and Sayo Bamigbade. The aim of my project is to make learning OCaml easily accessible across different platforms, and hopefully make the process of learning OCaml easier for newbies. Hey, I’m a newbie :)

I think one of my most important core values is curiosity. I think curiosity drives me, and it keeps me alive. I think that human values and philosphy revolve around each other, and so they do for me too.

“It’s not always easy to be comfortable in the space created by open questions. It’s tempting to hide in small rooms built from quick answers.”― Merlin Sheldrake

While some people remain curious throughout their lives, for many of us, growing up means learning to accept things the way they are, and eventually, answering questions becomes more important than asking them. Fortunately for me, I have space to ask questions and pursue them. I have the time to ponder and wonder. And I think that it’s a significant part of my identity.

Another core value very closely related to curiosity is innovation. Pursuing creative ideas. Having stories, and pushing progress. Different people in the world have different roles, and I want to have a role where I can contribute. Make something a little bit better. Or much better. It’s allowing creative expression, having space for it. Coupling it with curiosity to make the world a better place, for myself and for others.