My First Participation in Hacktoberfest (2021)
Tags: hacktoberfest, programming, github, opensource
Published: 2021-10-19 15:42:06

## :wave: Introduction
Hi there, My name is __Ajay__. I am currently a **Higher Secondary School** :school: student, studying at __Bangalore__. I like to __code__ :man_technologist:. I primarily use __Python__ as my language of preference to code. Occasionally, I help others in their projects and I quickly __adjust__ to their code style. I am a __quick__ and __adaptive__ learner. :sunglasses:

In this blog I would like to __Enthusiastically__ share my experience about my **First Hacktoberfest**. :star_struck:

## :jack_o_lantern: About Hacktoberfest
- __Hacktoberfest__ is a month-long :spiral_calendar: event in October, run by **Digital Ocean** partnered with __GitHub__ and other companies to support the philosophy of **Open Source Software**.
- __Anyone__ can take part and participate in __Hacktoberfest__.
- The requirement for completing the event is to be one among the first **50 thousand** :brain: people to successfully make **4 valid Pull Requests**, to any repository(s) hosted in __GitHub__ or __Gitlab__.
- This year for successfully completing the event you get a **Limited Edition** T-Shirt, and a **Developer Badge**. :money_with_wings:

Enough about Hacktoberfest, let me share my **experience** in my **First Hacktoberfest**. :sweat_smile:

## :partying_face: My Experience
When I first noticed hacktoberfest at the time I was unaware of what is **Open Source** and how much impact they had on technology :thinking:, also at that time, I wasn't much experienced as a __coder__ and was new to **Version Control** and __GitHub__. :persevere:

But now things have __changed__ :sunglasses:, I have worked on __many__ Projects and I am **well versed** with how GitHub works.

During this event, I had __fun__ contributing to many projects. I was also __appreciated__ by my family and my friends :blush:. But even after __preparing__ myself for this event, I was still a bit __hesitant__ at the start :sweat:.

Initially all the repositories seemed way out of my league, but as they say **`"Don't judge a book by its cover"`**, when I had a look into the __issues__ and the __code__, they weren't actually tough as they seemed :laughing:. After finishing my **4 PR's**, I didn't stop there, I contributed to a **few more** and I will __continue__ to do so.

Although majority of my contribution were **"code related"** there were also a few in the other category, like **fixing typos** :wink:.

So what advice I have for first timers like me is that, __"Contribution"__ towards an **Open Source Software** does not involve only **writing code**, **implementing** new features, **finding bugs** :beetle:**, writing tests**..., but it can also be something **very simple** such as **fixing grammatical errors**, **writing blogs** :memo: about the product, helping in __translation__ and __promoting__ the product.

Now since I __understand__ more about open source, I will still __continue__ to contribute to **Open Source Software** regardless whether the event stops or continues. :metal:

## :clap: Final Words
I give my __thanks__ to all the companies that hosted this event. I had a lot of fun and __learnt__ new stuff :grinning: during this event. I am very much **looking forward** to this event in the upcoming years.

And lastly, I really __appreciate__ all the people who took their time to read my entire blog :pray:.