This May I started my internship at Red Hat with the Pulp team. Since it was my first ever internship, I expected I would spend the summer working in a closet somewhere, on nothing of importance, and that what I worked on would be tossed out the second I left.
My first afternoon with the Pulp team, several members sat down with me and walked me through setting up my development environment and gave me a rough idea of what I would be doing. After only about 30 minutes into my first full day, I realized I was not going to spend the summer in a closet somewhere.
This was the first time I had worked with Python, I had almost no knowledge of Git, and I only had a vague idea what content management meant. Everyone on the Pulp team, and several people who were not, were happy to help with anything and everything I needed. Within a week I had made my first code contribution to an open source project, and before long, I had half a dozen bugs fixed and had added a small feature to the Pulp administration client. The second half of the summer I worked on a requested Pulp feature for Red Hat’s Satellite. It’s quite exciting to know I worked on something people have asked for and will use.
I have not worked at any other companies, so it is a bit difficult for me to gauge what effect the open source culture has on the work environment at Red Hat. However, over the summer I have been struck by how willing people are to speak their minds and how everyone’s opinion has weight in a discussion. I was included in all the meetings that related to the feature I was working on, and people asked what I thought and if I believed the requested features could be implemented in a reasonable timeframe.
I’ve had an amazing time learning how to contribute to open source software, working on a team with members located nationwide, and meeting people who are as passionate about what they do as I am. Although I’m still fairly ignorant when it comes to The Python Way or Git, everyone is doing their best to make sure I leave more knowledgeable than when I arrived. My only concern now is: How will my second internship live up to this one?
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