Open Source Comes to Campus/Curriculum/Career Panel

The purpose of the career panel is to help students learn more about what being an open source contributor is like. It also helps them get to know their mentors, which may make them more likely to ask for help and to stay involved after the event.

There are a few different variations on the career panel.

Formats

Classic Career Panel

The panelists come to the front of the room, as does a moderator (usually another member of the staff).

We start off by asking each person to introduce themselves, their current occupation, and their current employer and to talk very briefly about how that work relates to open source. Then, the floor is opened up to questions. Attendees can sometimes be shy about asking questions, so it may be useful to have some potential questions at the ready.

Potential Questions

• How did you get started in open source?
• What opportunities are out there for college students? And do you have any other advice specific to college students?
• Do you have advice on what to do when approaching a project for the first time?
• What obstacles have you faced in open source? How have you addressed them?
• What business models are there for open source?
• What are some non-programming contributions you've made?
• What's your favorite open source project?
• Who's the coolest person you've met doing open source stuff?

Other Notes

We aim for panelists representing a diversity of open-source jobs. For example, past panelists have included people who work for Red Hat BoCoup Loft the Sunlight Foundation and the Personal Genome Project, as well as freelancers.

We try to do the career panel immediately before lunch, so that students can follow up with mentors whose answers they found interesting.