My experience as an OLS contributor
If you are reading this, you are probably thinking about becoming a member of the OLS community, or like me, you got into the contribution stage at Outreachy and would love to know a little bit more about the community.
A brief introduction about me, my name is Adeola Adekoya, and I describe myself as a woman with various interests. Currently, I am a product designer and front-end developer. If you’d like to know more about my journey, you can read it here or if you're a visual learner, you can watch it here.
A couple of weeks ago, I got accepted into Outreachy as a contributor 🎉🎉and had to choose a project to which I would love to contribute to and I chose the Open Life Science community (OLS).
What is Open Life Science (OLS)?
I can't tell you about my experience as a contributor without a little intro about OLS.
Open Life Science, or OLS, is a mentorship program and cohort-based training that connects and empowers participants while they share knowledge and build the skills needed to create, lead, and sustain an Open Science project. The community was founded by a group of individuals from life science backgrounds, but welcomes members from all walks of life. You can learn more about them and the amazing work they're doing here.
How we contribute to OLS
A contribution in this context could be fixing a broken link, adding helpful information to the project documentation, working on a design to address an issue identified, or bringing up an issue you believe needs to be addressed.
I am currently in the Outreachy contribution phase, which lasts for four weeks and involves learning, participating in projects (mine being OLS), and documenting our contributions on the Outreachy portal. If selected, this gives the applicant the opportunity to advance and become a paid intern. The beautiful thing about it is that even if you aren’t chosen, it’s okay because you still get to learn a lot, grow your network, and interact with people from all over the world.
My experience contributing to OLS
If, like me, this is your first time contributing to open source; you’re in good hands. Don’t be afraid to ask any questions; in fact, ask A LOT of questions. The OLS community is VERY welcoming. Literilly, it’s full of love and there are many applicants just like you who are making their first open-source contributions. We also have incredible mentors and team members who have helped to make the experience the greatest by taking the time to answer ALL the questions you might have and making it enjoyable for every one of us.
If you're thinking about joining, OLS you're in great hands, have fun and do your best ❤.
Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed reading this and have any questions or would just like to have a chat, you can follow me on Twitter @adeoladev, connect with me on LinkedIn, or check out what I’m up to on TikTok or Instagram.
