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

[Shauna Gordon-McKeon]

CC'ing in our two additional mentors!  Welcome aboard, Zachs.  :)

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 2:41 PM, Shauna Gordon-McKeon <shaunagm at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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