This year, I took the leap into open-source by joining Hacktoberfest 2024—my very first experience with contributing to an event of this kind! At first, I felt completely lost. I didn’t know where to begin or what kind of contributions would be meaningful, so I started with some research and watched tutorials to get an idea of the process. Little by little, I learned how Hacktoberfest works and started exploring repositories.

The early days weren’t easy. Finding suitable repositories to contribute to was challenging, and I accidentally contributed to a few spam repositories. But instead of feeling defeated, I saw this as motivation to find genuine, active projects where my work could truly make a difference. After more research and some guidance from the open-source community, I found several valid repositories. I created issues, wrote documentation, and submitted code—small steps that felt like big accomplishments.

One of my favorite contributions was updating documentation for a data analysis library. As a data science enthusiast, I felt connected to the project, and contributing in this way helped me better understand both the technical aspects and the importance of clear documentation. I also worked on some non-coding contributions, like fixing typos, organizing content, and enhancing user instructions. This showed me that open-source is more than just code; it’s a community effort where every contribution counts.

The biggest surprise of all came when I received an email saying one of my pull requests had been accepted. I never expected my work to be recognized so quickly, especially as a first-time contributor. Gradually, more of my PRs were accepted, and it felt surreal! The fact that my efforts were acknowledged gave me a huge boost in confidence, reinforcing my belief that learning and contributing go hand-in-hand.

This journey has been a fantastic learning experience, from navigating repositories to engaging with project maintainers. Next year, I hope to come back with more contributions, explore new types of projects, and perhaps even help first-time contributors like myself.

I’m incredibly grateful to the project maintainers and the Hacktoberfest team for making this event possible. Their support and guidance helped me take my first steps into the world of open source, a place I once found intimidating but now feel excited to return to.

To anyone considering joining open source: don’t be afraid to try something new. Everyone has a first time. Even if coding isn’t your strong suit, there’s room for contributions in design, documentation, and content organization. The key is to start—each pull request, accepted or not, is an opportunity to grow and improve. If you didn’t participate this year, I encourage you to give it a try in the future.

*This is a submission for the 2024 Hacktoberfest Writing challenge: Contributor Experience