I was recently asked about suggestions for summer experiences for an undergraduate CS/Applied math student.
I'd like to see something that informs and encourages the engineering path, amps up her enthusiasm, and that provides some real world (industry or academic) experience.
I have some ideas: internship programs at large companies in my industry (biotech-ish); summer of code projects; and generally the kind of things I can find via my personal network and a search engine. I'm sure that I'm missing more than I'm digging up.
I suspect that there are probably:
- other folks in my situation who would love to hear about nerdy opportunities, perhaps with different emphases (e.g. contributing to a peer reviewed paper, or ...); and
- folks with opportunities who would love to get the word out.
If you have actionable ideas or opportunities to promote, please share them. Tell us what you're looking for, what you have to offer, if you're focusing on particular communities, if you offer support, and anything else that seems relevant.
This year I'm helping mentor the ZynAddSubFX organization https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/6487755463... . Zyn is an open source musical synthesizer, so there's skills that are used in a number of domains, ranging from technical writing skills, to user experience knowhow, to musical backgrounds, user interface coding, hard realtime programming practices, to digital signal processing.
It's zyn's first year in GSoC, so it's going to be a learning experience on both sides, but it should be a good time. Outside of the official GSoC project we're always looking for contributors who are interested in learning new things.