Things to do

The Rails Girls Summer of Code is about supporting the students on their way into the Open Source community. Besides coding, this also includes getting the word out and meeting other developers. Here is a list of activities that are part of the program and will help you entering the community:

Focus on your work.
Post brief, but daily status updates on your team log.
Write one, maybe two blog posts on the Rails Girls Summer of Code blog. You can write whatever type of post you like, text, images, a video, … This is up to you as long as it’s related to your amazing work on your project :)
Visit your local developers user groups, hackdays, community events, etc. This will get you connected with your local community.
Give at least one lightning talk at a conference, local user group, Rails Girls (or similar) workshop.
Use all the support channels and ask all the questions that you have!
Have fun :)

If you are working with a pair (and most of you do) then all of these things refer to you as a pair, too. I.e. you don’t have to post individual status updates to your log. You can give a lightning talk together with your pair, and it’s probably more fun to visit a user group together.

Visit community events and conferences

Obviously you should spend the precious work time that you have focussing on your work. But we’d also like you to get in touch with the community vis-a-vis, if possible, so you get a feeling for that vibe, too.

For example, you can schedule visiting evening events like the local Ruby user group. User groups usually happen once a month. After the Summer of Code is over, we recommend to visit a conference that is close to your place.

We highly recommend to plan for giving at least a brief lightning talk at any such event, too, so you get to share the love and practice speaking in front of a bunch of people :)

Don’t feel too scared about presenting your work and experience at such events! Of course everyone is (seriously, even experienced, seasoned speakers are).

But on the other hand everyone in the community also loves what you are doing (you can see how this program is being received by looking at the success of our campaign). And people will love it, hold you in high respect and give their support if you pluck up your courage to tell them about your experience (even if just briefly).

If you find a conference that you’d like to visit, then please tell us! We might know the organizers (or people who know them) and maybe we can sort out free tickets etc. for you.