[Campus-columbia-staff] intro email for organizers and mentors at Columbia event this Saturday!

[Shauna Gordon-McKeon]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for volunteering for the Open Source Comes to Campus event on
Saturday, November 15th at Columbia!  I wanted to send out a quick email to
introduce you all to each other and open up a space for you to talk and ask
questions about the event.  I’ve also added you all to our mailing list,
campus-columbia-staff at lists.openhatch.org, where we’ll be discussing
things, coordinating, etc going forward.  You should have gotten a
notification - if you didn’t, check your spam folder.

So, introductions: I’m Shauna, and I’ll be helping remotely with the event
in the lead up to Saturday as well as on Saturday as well.  Feel free to
send me emails, or ping me on IRC (I’m “shauna” on Freenode).  Nate
Brennand is the student organizer for this event, and he’ll be present on
the day of the event.  He’s your goto person for logistical questions like
“How do I find the room?”  (From my experience last year: you’ll want to
ask this question ahead of time!)  We’ve also got some great mentors lined
up: Alex, Travis, Ben and Nik.  Please feel free to introduce yourselves!
Also: we’re looking for one more mentor, so if you know someone who’d like
to join us, feel free to invite them.

Now, I’ve got some questions for you, to help figure out who is doing what
on the day of the event.  I’m assigning people to tasks on this sheet
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qupzW_7stDkuB9ArLXLO6oiIx5dtlZDbMIJ8-UxdkNE/edit?usp=sharing>
- please go take a look!  I’ve made some tentative assignments based on
email conversations and sign up forms, but please feel free to add or
remove yourself from roles as you feel comfortable.  Perhaps helpful will
be explanations of different activities
<https://openhatch.org/wiki/Open_Source_Comes_to_Campus/Curriculum>.  You
can also email me with any questions you have!

Some highlights from that sheet:


   -

   One person to present our communications tools lecture.  Nik, I’ve
   assigned this to you.
   -

   People to talk about open source careers.  It looks like Nik is the only
   one with paid experience in open source.  Nik, would you feel comfortable
   leading a general discussion?  I can also arrange for people to join the
   discussion remotely, including folks who have done GSoC or OPW - it’s great
   to highlight those opportunities as things that students can do in the near
   term.  Nik, let me know what you’re comfortable with.
   -

   Four people who feel comfortable enough with git to lead a small group
   of students through our git activity.  I’ve tentatively assigned this to
   Alex, Travis, Ben and Nate, since Nik is already doing so many things for
   us.  :)
   -

   Projects for folks to work on during the contributions period. Right now
   all I’ve got is Travis helping students triage Python tickets, which should
   be awesome.  Nik, did you have a project you wanted to help students
   contribute to?  Other options are:
   -

      Help students contribute to a recommended project:
      https://openhatch.org/wiki/Recommended_Projects
      -

      Help students learn a specific type of task, either: improving
      project accessibility
      <http://openhatch.github.io/open-source-comes-to-campus/lessons/newcomer-tasks/accessibility/#/>,
      improving project setup instructions
      <http://openhatch.github.io/open-source-comes-to-campus/lessons/newcomer-tasks/setup/#/>,
      cleaning issue trackers
      <https://openhatch.org/wiki/Open_Source_Comes_to_Campus/Newcomer_Tasks/Issue_Tracker_Cleaning>,
      translating software <https://openhatch.org/wiki/Translate_software>.

The important thing here is not being an expert in the project so much as
helping students figure out “what to do next”.  This is absolutely 90% of
the reason students get discouraged - because they’re not sure what the
next step is and they don’t want to ask for help.  Being present, working
with them, and helping them brainstorm how to fix problems and find answers
is way more important than knowing the project intimately.  The latter
helps you finish contributions, which is great, but the former is what
helps students have a good time and stay involved.  :)

Long email, sorry!  Let me know if you have any questions, and if you can
respond to this as soon as possible so I can take steps to make sure
everything’s covered, that’d be great.

best,
Shauna
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