My Journey in Hacktoberfest 2021 and Why You Should also Participate
Tags: opensource, hacktoberfest
Published: 2021-10-21 12:03:09

## What is Hacktoberfest?
[Hacktoberfest](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/) is held in the month of October every year. It is all about getting people to make **quality contributions** to open-source projects. Those who make 4 pull requests which are valid and get merged, get some swag (t-shirt, stickers). 

# My Journey
I was pretty excited about Hactoberfest this year as this was my first year participating in it. Hacktoberfest 2021 would give me an opportunity to make many quality pull requests. Now, this doesn't mean that you should only contribute during Hacktoberfest, you should contribute whenever you get the opportunity to do so.

## Notable Contributions

![here-our-contribution.gif](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1634812251871/IC_itjN6z.gif)

### Migrate to Firebase v9 JS SDK

I started off by working on [an issue labeled `hacktoberfest`](https://github.com/avneesh0612/voyagger/issues/12) (these are the kind of issues you should look for). I had never used the Firebase v9 JS SDK before but this was a great opportunity for me to experience the new modular nature of the SDK. I learned a lot from working on this issue. After I was done with migrating and testing everything, I opened [a pull request](https://github.com/avneesh0612/voyagger/pull/15) and after some time it got merged, and once again, I felt happy. You can read about the joy of contributing to open-source [here](https://blog.anishde.dev/the-joy-of-contributing-to-open-source). 

### Changed styles to incorporate Hacktoberfest 2021 colors
[Usman Sabuwala](https://twitter.com/MaxProgramming1) made [an amazing project](https://github.com/max-programming/hacktoberfest-projects) which allowed anyone to look for Hacktoberfest projects to contribute to. One problem was that the color scheme used in the website resembled the Hacktoberfest 2020 color scheme. I decided to change the color scheme and make some changes and then submitted [a pull request](https://github.com/max-programming/hacktoberfest-projects). I learned a lot about [DaisyUI](https://daisyui.com/) (a tailwind CSS plugin) and how to style a website's scrollbar.

# Why you should participate in Hacktoberfest
Participating in Hacktoberfest is not about getting the swag but it is about making quality contributions and learning from it. You will get a chance to learn a lot from working on issues. During Hacktoberfest, many communities arrange events where they talk about contributing to open-source and how one can get started. In simple words, participate in Hacktoberfest to get familiar with open-source and then contribute to open-source whenever you get an opportunity to do so.

Hacktoberfest 2021 is still not over, you have got time till October 31st and if you cannot complete 4 quality pull requests by that time, don't worry, just making quality contributions means a lot and gets you started with contributing to open-source. 

You can check out my article about how open-source is of great importance in everyday life and why we should contribute to open-source in one of my [past articles](https://blog.anishde.dev/open-source-in-everyday-life). I have also talked about the joy of contributing to open-source in my [last article](https://blog.anishde.dev/the-joy-of-contributing-to-open-source).

That is it for this post, feel free to comment down below with your thoughts and achievements in the open-source community and you can also reach out to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/anishde12020). See you in the next one!!!