HN Explorer

For newbs, what's the best way to find interesting projects and get noticed?

3 points by pumblechook ↗ HN
So I just started a Master's program for Software Engineering, and so far I'm loving it. The baseline knowledge is good, but I really want to contribute to actual projects in a tangible way, and hopefully learn something new. Given my lack of experience at this point I don't expect that I could find a job, so I'm willing to work for free in exchange for learning something and building a portfolio.<p>But I really don't know where to begin. Any suggestions?

2 comments

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Tharkun
The easiest and most obvious answer is to scratch your own itches, as it were. Find a bug in a piece of software you're using? Report it, or better yet, fix it. Poor documentation? Improve upon it. Missing feature? Try to implement it.

If the software you use has no immediate flaws, you could ask your friends about their itches and try to scratch them.

If that's not an option either, then there's always the internet. Look around on sites like freshmeat or hacker news for new and potentially interesting projects. Offer a hand where possible.

pumblechook
Thanks for the suggestions! Are there any places I could look for open source projects that might need a hand? I'm a regular lurker on HN and I thought about volunteering my (limited) services for a startup I found interesting, but I know startups need real, dedicated employees, not erstwhile volunteers.

I've also got a few ideas for some basic software to scratch the itch, as it were, but I'd really like to be able to interact with people that are smarter than I am.