Ahmed El-Hassany's Blog

Google Summer of Code™ 2009 Logo

1. Look at the previous GSoC mentoring organizations, most of them has already published this year ideas list. You might try using Google search engine to search for ‘Google Summer of Code 2009 Ideas’.
2. Try thinking of those ideas, see what might interest you. I would remind you that GSoC is about three to four months you don’t have much time for big projects. Also, being ambitious is good but remember you have to be realistic about your project don’t over take projects that are over your capabilities. In GSoC you’re going to learn a lot of things and you mostly you will not have all the knowledge and experience to do the project. But you should got the basics and you have all the summer to learn and work. So, the best thing is to try to balance between what you already have and between what you’re going to learn.
3. Make short list about 5 to 7 projects from different organizations. You free to select more, but big list will distract you. Also, try to select projects that have similarities on your advantage, like all the project on your list use PHP and you have PHP experience.
4. Start walking around on the mailing lists and IRC channels for these projects.
5. It will rise your chance to be accepted if you send patches for those projects, but if you don’t it’s OK.
6. If you feel that those projects on the short list is hard and over your capabilities don’t panic. Try thinking again on that project sometimes project look very hard at the first time but when you think of it or discuss it with your friends you will see how easy it is. If you think of the project one time after another and you still find it very hard it’s OK, try looking for other projects.
7. Note: not all organizations that apply for GSoC will be accepted. It’s also competitive for the mentoring organizations, so be sure that your short list contain projects from at least three diffrent mentoring organizations.

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Google Summer of Code by ahassany