After looking at a variety of open source projects, I feel more understanding of the range in open source projects regarding setup, types of contributions, community culture, and overall complexity. Though this may be an obvious fact, it was only after looking through project repositories and completing various project evaluations that I really comprehended that no open source project is necessarily the same. I saw a lot of great examples that I would like to emulate in my own. For example, I admired projects that had readme’s, contributing files, license files, and all the need to know documents in a highly accessible place. I also really admired projects that labelled issues and had clearly defined categories or moderators that were actively enaging with the community to help facilitate changes or questions. In open source, I think I’ve learned more that communication and transparency is key.

I’m really excited to see my own changes/fixes be implemented, but it is daunting. Though we had to choose a few projects to evaluate, I still don’t really feel tied down or particularly drawn to a specific open source project because I want to work on a variety. I think I may have to further narrow down this vision for now, so I appreciate the exercises we have done so far. However, I think the biggest challenge will really be finding a project where I can apply my specific skills - I fear that even if I find a project I really love, they may not need the type of help I can offer. It could be an invitation for me to learn new skills, or I may just struggle to contribute anything at all. In that same vein, I think overall imposter syndrome will be a challenge to overcome as well. However, regarding imposter syndrome I kind of have no choice but to just dive in because contributions are graded! So I definitely have to force myself to get my feet wet and be a part of a community.