Re: [Qemu-devel] GSoC mentor summit session "how to bind students long-term"

[Luiz Capitulino <lcapitulino@redhat.com>]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:55:56 +0000
Stefan Hajnoczi <stefanha@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 04:00:34PM +0200, Alexander Graf wrote:
> > During the GSoC mentor summit there was a pretty interesting session on how to get students to stick with your project even after GSoC has ended. So far we haven't really been exactly successful in that respect :). I'll just post my notes below:
> > 
> >   - send successful students to conferences
> >   - set expectations on what we expect from students after gsoc, lay out the achievement plan for students to times beyond gsoc
> >   - give students responsibility, make them maintain parts (makes it harder for them to just leave, because they feel obliged)
> >   - shove students to community, no sidechannel communication, make them do A&Os on the public list
> 
> My personal experience being a GSoC student was that responsibility and
> fellowship matters most - it's what makes contributing addictive.  It's
> one thing to do an interesting project for 12 weeks but another to stick
> around because the group of developers have become your friends and you
> feel responsibility and satisfaction from supporting users on
> IRC/mailing lists.
> 
> The easiest way to give students responsibility is to get them actively
> involved in supporting users on IRC/mailing lists and fixing bugs.
> Doing this in addition to the official GSoC project is more likely to
> keep them hooked.  It helps turn them into a QEMU expert and someone who
> can help others - and hopefully they'll want to continue using this
> skill once the summer is over.

Please, let's create a http://wiki.qemu.org/GSoCMentors or something.

> 
> Stefan
>