As mentioned in my last blog posts, Outreachy is very interesting and I got to learn a lot already. Two months have already passed by quickly and there is still one month left for me to continue working and learning.
As I imagine all the other interns are thinking now, I am also thinking about what is going to be the next step for me. After such an interesting experience as this internship, thinking about the next steps is not that simple.
I have been contributing to Free Software projects for quite some years now. I have been part of the only FLOSS community in my country for many years and I grew up together with the community, advocating free software in and around Albania.
I have contributed to many projects, including Mozilla, OpenStreetMap, Debian, GNOME, Wikimedia projects etc. So, I am sure, the FLOSS world is definitely the right place for me to be. I have helped communities grow and I am very enthusiastic about it.
I have been growing up and evolved as a person through contributing to all the projects I have mentioned above. I have gained knowledge that I would not have had a chance to acquire, if it was not for the “sharing knowledge” ideology that is so strong in the FLOSS environment.
Through organizing big and small events from 300 people conferences to 30 people bug squashing parties to 5 people strategy workshops, I have been able to develop skills because the community trusted me with responsibility in event organizing even before I was able to prove myself. I have been supported by great mentors which helped me learn on the job and leave me with practical knowledge that I am happy to continue applying in the FLOSS community. I am thinking about formalizing my education in the marketing or communication areas to also learn some academic background and further strengthen the practical skills.
During Outreachy I have learned to use the bash command line much better. I have learned LaTeX as it was one of the tools that I needed to work on the fundraising materials. I have also improved a lot using git commands and feel much more confident now. I have worked a lot on fundraising while also learning Python very intensively, and programming is definitely a skill that I would love to profound.
I know that foreign languages are something that I enjoy, as I speak English, Italian, Greek and of course my native language Albanian, but lately I learned that programming languages can be as much fun as the natural languages and I am keen on learning more of both.
I love working with people, so I hope in the future I will be able to continue working in environments where you interact with a diverse set of people.