GSoC Journal: Week 1- The Beginning after the End

The END

Before this Journey started, something had already ended — Journey of getting selected for GSoC!

For last few weeks, everything was about anticipation. Checking comments on Proposal, scrolling through reddit discussions and forums for hints on results, hoping things would work out. So when the results finally came, it felt like I had reached somewhere.

But that feeling didn’t last long.

Because getting selected isn’t the end goal. It’s the point where things actually begin.

Every beginning has an end and every end is a new beginning.

The Beginning

Soon, after the announcement on the GSoC website,a detailed mail dropped from one of the Oppia Org Admins. It contained everything that needed to be done during the upcoming Community Bonding Period (CBP). The mail was long, but it gave a very clear picture of how the next few weeks would look.

The tasks were divided into three sections:

• Action Required (within the next 24 hours)
• Action Required (within the next 3 days)
• Action Required (during CBP)

I started completing the first set of tasks within the next few hours itself. Everything still felt exciting, and the tasks were comparatively small — reading contributor guidelines, joining communication channels, and confirming availability for meetings.

Soon it was time for the initial meeting with org admins and GSoC contributors. Chris hosted that meet and explained the important things we needed to keep in mind throughout the CBP period and answered many of our doubts. It was reassuring to see how structured everything was and how much emphasis Oppia places on communication and planning, not just development.

The next day, I focused on completing the “within the next 3 days” tasks:

• creating my Medium account,
• sending my introduction snippet and photo,
• Completed developer readiness checks
• and reaching out to my mentor, Mohit, to schedule our first introductory meeting.

We finalized the meeting for 3 May.

First Mentor Meeting

I had honestly been waiting for this meeting and joined around 10 minutes early out of excitement.

Mohit congratulated me and mentioned that my proposal itself was challenging enough that he had to do a look into the implementation details while reviewing it. He was happy with the current direction of the proposal, but also pointed out areas that needed improvement.

Some important feedback from the discussion:

• The submit and cancel buttons in one of the modal designs didn’t match Oppia’s existing UI patterns.
• I had allocated only 3 days for Milestone 2 acceptance tests, which was far too optimistic considering the scale of the work.

I also informed him about my absence on 5th and 6th May due to travelling back home. By the end of the meeting, we finalized regular mentor meetings twice a week — Wednesdays and Saturdays.

A Different Kind of Responsibility

This week wasn’t filled with coding challenges or major technical breakthroughs.

Instead, it felt like a shift in mindset.

Until now, most of my focus was on getting selected. But after these meetings and discussions, the focus naturally shifted toward Ownership of Project.

There hasn’t been much technical progress from my side yet because of travelling, but even then, this week taught me something important:

This project is now my responsibility. And before building features, I need to prepare properly — refining plans, improving timelines, and identifying possible issues early so they don’t become bigger problems later.

And I think this was the perfect beginning after the end.

🔗 Connect with Me

• GitHub: https://github.com/NITISH084
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitish-kumar-464995280/