OMG! I am Selected

It was like a dream but in real, so unbelievable but true. I give all thanks and glory to GOD 😇.

Here we Go!  

Actually, I didn't study IT at the university but have always being passionate of it. I think I didn't do it because I was a little bit intimidated by codes and was seeing those who could code like 'gurus', so I felt it was for others and I went in for Geology which I actually enjoyed.

This year in school was different. I had to drop out from university and stop reading Geology as there was a lot of political crises in my country and mostly in my schooling town. Not going to school and having nothing to do, I gave a try to programming and coding. I started by joining programming clubs and attending IT based events. with that, I made new friends in the field who guided me through algorithms, first code in C then in PHP and finally a small project in PHP. Wow! learnt so much😎😎.

One of the events I attended was "Hacking on MediaWiki". It was given by the Wikimedia User Group Cameroon, and that is where I heard and learnt of OpenSource and Outreachy program. I learnt how to clone and install an application from source using documentations, I learnt a lot about Wikimedia Foundation and decided to get ready for Outreachy next round, I research on the program and noticed I was eligable while hoping Wikimedia will be selected for the program. lucky enough, Wikimedia has lot of projects in PHP. I improved on my PHP skills as time kept on going💪💪.

Three things got my interest at the "Hacking on MediaWiki" event.

• The fact that an organisation could leave it source code so open and free.
• The fact that you could earn some money while learning and doing what you love so much.
• The food at the event was Superb!😋😸.

After some time the list of accepted organisations was out and Wikimedia among. So I selected a project "Show new file versions and description changes made on WikimediaCommons on the Watchlist". The project was so challenging, I found no beginner task under it, again I was the only candidate who showed interest in it (don't know why) but I wanted to work on it because I understood the project and its requirements easily. Also there was a lot of comments and documentation under it since the project was more than 2 years old. I asked questions,  made my first patch, did research but It was really fun to be receiving mail reply from very experienced developers and comments from "serious devs😌". I was very excited and It kept me working. I drafted a proposal while learning more on the project as date line for application was approaching fast.

Something Painful happened to my project!😱😭

The project I selected was removed from the list of projects 10 days before dateline for application😟 due to the fact that a similar feature for Wikidata was unstable. So I could not implement one for Commons until the one for Wikidata is stable.
My mentors Legoktm and D3r1ck01 had to create a new project to replace the deleted one. That is how the Project "Refactoring the MediaWiki MassMessage Extension" came in. I was encouraged by Srishti and my mentors but It was not simple. In 7 days I had drafted a new proposal, completed 2 micro tasks on the project and got them merged. Finally I submitted my application on the outreachy site. The comments of my mentors helped and encouraged me alot. To be sincere, I was hopelessly waiting for result. The more the day for results was approaching the more I was scared . I gave myself many reason why they won't select me.😓

Time for results!😜

I was in front of my computer and opened my gmail, waited for more than 30 minutes and received no mail from Outreachy. I knew I was not selected🙈🙈. So I opened the Outreachy site to see the names of the lucky candidates. As I was scrolling down, I saw my name and my project🙌😁. I was so exited so happy that I got headache shouting😅. few minutes later I received an email from Outreachy organizers congratulating me.

A day I will never forget😂