Originally written as a Dev Impact 2023 Writing Challenge on dev.to.
Hi friends! 👋
I can’t believe that 2023 is almost come to an end. There are many ups and downs throughout the year, personally and professionally. Due to something that happened sometime this year, I let things go where they took me because my motivation faded.
But many surprises and opportunities came to me along the way and gradually brought my motivation back. So, yes. This year is such a blessing. 💖
Proud and grateful moments
Podcast guest
At the beginning of the year, I pushed myself to leave my comfort zone and became a guest on the Women Who Code podcast. I talked about “The Power of Communities for Self-Taught Developers”.
This episode got into the top five viewed/listened to episodes of the WWCode Career Nav podcast in 2023 on the WWCode YouTube channel! 🎉
I also did a podcast at Virtual Coffee with Dominic Duffin. We talked about Preptember, Hacktoberfest, and open source.
Open source projects maintainer
At the beginning of this year, I talked with a friend. She told me that she wants to learn to be a maintainer of open source projects. And I told her I love open source environments and contributing to open source projects. But I’m unsure if I can be a maintainer, especially for code-related projects. However, I want to be one one day.
Well, friends, dreams do come true!
In August this year, when preparing the Preptember challenge at Virtual Coffee with the team, we came up with the idea of having a repository for our members to practice open source before Hacktoberfest comes. I created and prepared the repo to be ready for contributions for the first time. And that also marked the first time I became a project maintainer!
The following month, I got the opportunity to become a maintainer for all projects at the SheSharp community with Sara and Mariah.
I also got to maintain some projects at Open Sauced with Bekah HW, Christine Belzie, and Jessica Wilkins.
And recently, I co-maintain one of Nick Taylor’s projects together with Satoshi S..
I’m looking forward to collaborating more with these incredible people and what 2024 will bring to my open source journey!
Scholarship
I’m very grateful to be one of the participants who was granted a scholarship at the SheSharp community! I will use this opportunity to pick up my front-end development learning and dive into the testing world. 💙
Getting featured
DEV community
I was thrilled when Michael Tharrington reached out and told me that DEV would feature me as Mod of the Month in August. Little did he know that August was my birth month. So it was a lovely birthday present! 😉
Codenewbie
CodeNewbie has always had a special place in my heart. So, when one of my articles, “How to Communicate Better in Open Source”, got featured in the Top Featured CodeNewbie Posts (8/17/23), I was so happy! 💜
freeCodeCamp
It was a surprise that the first-ever article I’ve written on freeCodeCamp, “How to Contribute to Open Source Projects – Non-Technical Things You Should Know”, got into Quincy Larson’s newsletter! 🤩
And it was an honor for me to be listed as one of the Publication Top Contributors in freeCodeCamp’s Top Open Source Contributors of 2023. ✨
Polywork
I had fun sitting with Nick Lioudis from Polywork for an interview about my journey in tech and communities. 🥰
SheSharp
I joined SheSharp not long ago and feel immediately welcomed and included in the community. It warmed me to be featured as October Sharpie of the Month. Thank you! 💚
Community initiatives
Virtual Coffee
Hacktoberfest this year was the first time I participated as a mentor during the “Virtual Coffee Hacktoberfest Initiative”.
Also, this year, I officially became a Monthly Challenge Lead with Dominic! 🙌
The Collab Lab
I never had the time and courage to volunteer as a mentor at @_collab_lab. This year, as in the years before, I volunteered as a Code of Conduct responder for a couple of our teams.
One thing led to another: I stepped in in the middle of the cohort to be a mentor for a team! I am super grateful for my great teammates and the lessons I learned as a mentor. 🤗
SheSharp
It was a very exciting moment for me to be part of SheSharp’s pilot Hacktoberfest Initiative as the Hacktoberfest support! 😍
DEV contributions
This year, I mostly wrote about open source for beginners at DEV. It always gives me a good feeling when I hear my writing can help someone. 🥰
I didn’t moderate as much as I wanted this year, but I plan to do better next year! 🙌
Brilliant fails
The most challenging thing I encountered this year is pretty much the same as many others: getting rejections in job searching.
I took this as an opportunity to be more active in open source and communities and to sharpen my skills.
Hopefully, next year will be much better for me and many others! 🙏
Celebrate the numbers
Shoutouts
Many people have supported me in my journey, not only this year but also in past years. And I’m forever grateful for them! 💖
It takes the whole community to support and help me become a better developer and person. I’m taking this opportunity to give shoutouts to these extraordinary communities.
Here it comes in no particular order:
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Thank you for all the support during my down times and the cheers for my wins. I’m very lucky to have an extended family! 💖
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Thank you for your endless support and for making me a better developer! 🫶
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Thank you for the opportunity to maintain our projects! I learned a lot and am looking forward to learning much more! Stay saucy! 🍕
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Thank you for all the opportunities, and I look forward to contributing more next year! 💚
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Thank you for all these lovely years, for making me part of the awesome mod team, and for being welcoming and inclusive communities for all devs worldwide! I’ve grown so much together with you all! You rock! 🫰
Future goals
I might only achieve some things here next year, but knowing what I aim for is always good.
So, my future goals are:
- to be a better open source maintainer and contributor,
- to be a better documentarian (is this a word?), as it is my forever happy place,
- keep being active in tech communities,
- learn more and sharpen my skills in frontend development,
- start learning testing and accessibility (yes, I’m also interested in QA engineering!),
- get that one job in tech!
Final words (in GIF)
🖼️ Credit cover image: Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash