Record number of student applications for Google Summer of Code

Earlier today the application deadline for students wishing to participate in Google Summer of Code 2012 came to a close. Thank you to all the students who applied to be a part of this year’s program. We had a record 6,685 student proposals from 4,258 students submitted to this year’s 180 participating mentoring organizations.

The mentoring organizations will now take the next couple of weeks to read through all of their student proposals and decide which students their organization will mentor this summer.

Students: stay tuned to the Google Summer of Code site where we will announce all of this year’s accepted Google Summer of Code students on April 23 at 19:00 UTC. For additional important information about the program check out our timeline and read our Frequently Asked Questions.

You can always stay up to date on all things Google Summer of Code on this blog, our mailing lists or on our IRC channel #gsoc on Freenode.

Good luck, students! May the odds be ever in your favor.

By Stephanie Taylor, Open Source Programs

Final Hours to Submit Student Proposals for Google Summer of Code

Students, the deadline for submitting your proposal for Google Summer of Code is only hours away. Be sure to submit your proposal to the program site by this Friday, April 6th at 19:00 UTC (Noon PST) to be considered for this year’s program.

For tips on writing a quality proposal that will grab the attention of the mentoring organizations check out the student manual. This is a highly competitive program and the quality of your proposal is what will set you apart from the rest of the applicants.

For more tips, see a list of some helpful dos and don’ts for successful student participation written by a group of experienced Google Summer of Code administrators, our user’s guide for the program site, Frequently Asked Questions and timeline. You can also stay up-to-date on all things Google Summer of Code on our Google Open Source blog, mailing lists or on IRC at #gsoc on Freenode.

Don’t miss out on an exciting summer full of open source coding by waiting until the last minute and missing the deadline. All proposals must be submitted before Friday, April 6th at 19:00 UTC.

By Stephanie Taylor, Google Open Source Programs

Moratuwa, Sri Lanka Google Summer of Code meetup

We held our fifth Google Summer of Code meetup in the Moratuwa, Sri Lanka area on March 17th. We had enormous support from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering staff at the University of Moratuwa to make it a full scale session covering many of the aspects of the program that are important to students. We had almost 150 students (a record high) in the morning introductory sessions and around 40 students during the afternoon sessions that were geared more toward second and third year university students.

Kathiravelu Pradeeban delivered an excellent 80 minute Google Summer of Code information presentation focusing on general open source fundamentals from how to communicate within open source communities to proper email/IRC etiquette to open source culture. He also discussed general information about Google Summer of Code such as important dates for the program, how to apply, guidelines on how to write project proposals, and some ideas to think about when deciding if a project is a good fit for you. In later sessions there was more of a focus on open source technologies with demos on how to effectively use these technologies for open source development work.

The students were very excited about the program, and asked many questions both publicly and to us individually after the session ended. We tried to clear up doubts students had about their own ability levels and encouraged them to participate by showing some of the great opportunities of working on a real-life project rather than the fake projects that they do at university most of the time. We also explained about the value of having connections all around the world and the spiritual happiness open source projects bring in general. Those of us that had participated as students with Google Summer of Code shared our experiences including one participant whose Google Summer of Code project caught the eye of a well known IT company who hired him.

Good luck to those students currently applying for Google Summer of Code!

By Kasun Gajasinghe, former Google Summer of Code student for DocBook Project and Gentoo Linux, 2012 DocBook Project mentor