 Hello everyone. Very good afternoon to everyone over here. Thank you so much for taking interest in our topic. So today we'll be talking about overcoming imposter syndrome and gaining confidence as an open source mentee. So let us imagine this. You have heard a lot about open source and you open GitHub. You find something that you really want to contribute to, but you go through the contributors or the maintainers and you feel like you're under qualified. So that's imposter syndrome. You might even feel hesitant to comment on issues or work on them. So today we're going to be talking about overcoming that feeling, trying to gain confidence, talking to mentors, all of that. So before we get started, please allow us to introduce ourselves. So hello everyone. I would like to introduce myself. I'm Asmit Malkandawar, currently a mentee at ACIN KPI organization. I'm pursuing BTEC in computer science and business systems. My background lies in product design and creating user centric interaction design. I'm deeply passionate about open source projects and I have contributed to various open source projects throughout my entire university and I've been part of various open source programs such as Google Summer of Code, Season of Dogs, and the Linux Foundation's mentorship program. Hello everyone. I'm Depeche Bursay. So I'm a final year student too. I'm pursuing my bachelor's in computer science and business systems. I have been contributing to CNCF projects for more than a year now and I was also an LFX mentee in the summer term. I worked on refactoring the documentation and writing new user guides for a CNCF project called ORIS. Along with this, I'm also a foundation member at the GNOME Foundation. I have been a community manager and I'm deeply passionate about open source. So we have contributed to the following organizations. So these are the basic list of organizations that we have contributed as mentees through various open source programs such as Google Summer of Code or Season of Dogs and the organizations range from CNCF ecosystem to Python ecosystem and even API specification projects and when we started contributing to these projects they were very new to us and we didn't know much about back then and it took us some time to figure things out right from how Git worked. The funny thing is even years later we know how things work but we know how to approach things a bit better and it still takes us some time to understand how a new community or a project works the doubt, the learning, it's still there which is why we feel strongly about this topic. So moving on to why this topic so like he previously mentioned we do still feel a little out of place maybe when you're starting out or something like that so we decided to research a little bit about this topic so about 70% of working professionals generally feel this way at least at some point in their lives and if we just talk about the US it's around 82%. If we specifically talk about mentees mentees are often unaware of what imposter syndrome is which we both were too and which is why it gets a little more difficult to deal with it so they may find it difficult to voice their opinions actively engage in discussions or anything of that sort so giving any kind of feedback they might hesitate to do that so it can also lead to mentees setting unrealistic standards for themselves or striving for perfection even though that's not required or expected out of them so it can prevent them from taking calculated risks or they might miss out on certain opportunities because of this Additionally mentees are unaware that they have imposter syndrome they might even never know about it and this lack of awareness from can isolate them from further opportunities and talking to their mentors or other guides there's no fixed guidance available on how to deal with it and lastly we both felt imposter syndrome in earlier stages of our contribution we weren't able to communicate properly or talk to mentors, talk to project maintainers and thus lost a few opportunities in the process but only after we started talking to mentors communicating with the community members we got to learn more about the project and it wasn't as daunting as we thought it was and certainly we gained confidence to actively engage and seize those opportunities Additionally when we were researching about this topic we went to the two obvious platforms which is the Reddit and the X Twitter so there were many people talking about it and there were many memes shared about it and people were open about it and also discussing and sharing their views and their opinions about it so that's the reason we chose to speak about this topic today So what is imposter syndrome? So before we tackle it we need to know what it is so imposter syndrome is basically just feeling like an imposter or a fraud in your own life even though you do have the skills so it may be characterized by feeling insecure feeling inadequate, doubting whether you belong there all of those things it often leads to anxiety, low self-esteem or sometimes even depression One thing which is worth noting is while we were researching we came to know that it was first only researched on women so it was called imposter phenomenon which was only found in professional women over the years research also happened on men so men and women do feel this way but even today there are some studies that show that underrepresented groups feel it more or they have a higher tendency of feeling imposter syndrome because they see lesser people from their groups in leadership roles and they may feel discouraged So when we talk specifically about imposter syndrome in open source or when you're starting out Asmit and I felt these and a lot of people who we spoke to felt imposter syndrome by the following points in open source So when we are talking about imposter syndrome in open source these are some specific points that we jot down and we wanted to discuss about it So the first point that we thought was mentees feel like only good or real developers can contribute to open source projects they should know every text track right from the beginning they should understand the code right from the beginning and they can't figure out good first issues and they need to contribute to something complex which certainly isn't possible as it takes time to understand the project and these are some of the two common myths that mentees feel when they first land on the open source project then also they think that mentors will feel they are incompetent if they ask questions but that's certainly not the case many mentors expect mentees to ask questions research about their project and then come up with their own solutions and ideas and that way mentors also feel like happy and they also help the mentees out of their own way and then there's also certain doubts where mentees feel like will anyone from organization review my PRs or the issues while it certainly takes time to review the issues and PRs because most of the open source maintainers have full-time jobs and they do open source as a passion so mentees need to wait out and see if they get any reviews and PRs in click time then next point I would like to highlight would be reviews that point out flaws rather than the areas of improvement what this means is suppose you now make a PR and now you got a review but that review suggests you to make some changes that doesn't mean that it's a negative comment or they don't appreciate your work it just means that there's some improvement needed in that and you can take that as an opportunity for learning and implementing it in the other projects as well then the next point would be people not knowing code may hesitate to start contributing even to non-code aspects they don't know that documentation work, the design work and all the other non-code aspects of an open source project has an equal weight as to code contributions and thus they hesitate to contribute to the documentation or even design issues then not feeling qualified enough to particular status in the Agara project now there might be some cases where mentees have contributed a lot everyone appreciates their work but they still feel under confident and they still feel like they haven't done enough and they should do more to get some status in an organization such as a maintainer or a contributor or get some badge and mentees also wonder if they could ever be a real contributor because they don't have the right background they think that they should come from a CS background or a tech background to contribute to open source which is certainly wrong I have many of my friends and peers who come from various other backgrounds and they have contributed to open source successfully so, yeah, these are some of the points that we had so moving on to mentors and their expectations I think we have a lot of mentors in the crowd so whenever mentees feel under confident a lot of that also comes with the unawareness of what a mentor really expects or what they want you to do so we just thought we could get a few points from our mentors see what they think so starting off with the basics a mentor can be anyone who is experienced or who you can trust with advice advice could be to help you solve something if you run into some problem or it could be just pointing you in the right direction so when we are clear about what a mentor expects from us it's easier and it prevents any gaps in communication so knowing how and what you are doing to continue learning or making contributions so throughout our mentorships what we focused on was communicating to the mentors what we are currently doing it helped them to give us more resources tell us how to approach the topics that we are learning the concepts that we are learning they also assigned us issues which are related to what we are learning so it just boosts the learning process a lot more asking questions after proper research so most mentors are working professionals and they are giving time outside of their working hours so it is usually expected that we do proper research before we ask any questions so that we make the most of the time and guidance that they are giving us if you have any updates on the assigned work you can do it sooner or later anything of that sort anyone who is affected by any changes in your work they should be updated so that they can be prepared in case there is some issue discussing reviews and suggestions so most of the mentors, maintainers really appreciate getting a fresh perspective on different projects so it is usually really appreciated if we are able to discuss take part in any kind of conversations even if it's on Slack, any meetings or really even just on a PR so these discussions and suggestions really help so now we have talked about what imposter syndrome is and what mentors expect from their mentees we will now see how to overcome the imposter syndrome what are some of the points that you can consider applying the first point would be to recognize the imposter syndrome and challenging it so you need to question your thoughts that are your thoughts valid unless you question your thoughts it's difficult to separate the reality from underconfidence imposter syndrome is common even among experienced developers accepting that fact that you feel that way is the first step towards overcoming it you can talk to your mentors or your close peers or discuss what you're facing they will definitely come forward and help you with your thoughts I remember when I started contributing to open source projects I reached out to my mentor and I asked him that I'm not understanding the project at all do I need to know all the tech stack and do I need to contribute to some other issues and he really calmed me down first and then he talked to me saying that it's okay to feel that way and then he basically showed a simple guide on how I can first start setting projects locally and then understanding what issues I can find out and then contributing towards it so that really helped me ahead and I got selected as Google some of code mentee in that project so the second point I would like to highlight here is setting small and attainable goals while working on a specific project or towards a larger goal make sure to break them into smaller like weekly or bi-weekly goals we both had followed this throughout all our major projects and mentorships and that sense of achievement of finishing small task that lead up to a bigger one is incomparable and it's very important that you feel good about yourself and participate in discussions this is like one of the important things that you can do in an open source community and no one would stop you to do that so don't hesitate to join the discussions within the communities sharing your ideas and knowledge can boost your confidence and help you establish yourself as a valuable mentee join the community meetings that may happen weekly or bi-weekly depends on the projects and when we were selected as LFX mentees we used to wake up around like 5 a.m. in the morning attend those meetings share our ideas talk with the other maintainers that give us another insights of like other insights of the project and that helped us really bond with the community much better then don't hold back your knowledge is always required this point goes hand in hand with the last point which I discussed the project needs you as much as you need the project and when you feel like you're not qualified enough you tend to participate in the discussions less and you hold back yourself that way the project is also missing out on a good idea and everyone contributes in a unique way so you can bring something unique to the table and your suggestions might just prove to be a game changer for the project I remember when I was selected as an intern for Google Season of Dogs they really had an old framework for documentation and it was becoming really hard to maintain and update the documentation so I suggested them that they should move to a new framework so I deployed a small demo for them and the mentor really liked the idea and he showcased it to his company and they adopted the new framework and that's how you can bring small changes to the big open source companies and then ask for feedback on your work getting timely feedback helps you make sure that you're heading in the right direction please remember that getting reviews doesn't necessarily mean that your work is wrong it just means that it just needs some improvement and when you get negative comments or you need to change something on your PR don't abandon that PR instead work on it and improve the quality of PR this will not only help you overcome imposter syndrome but also help you ahead in your career because most of the recruiters check the positive discussions that happen in the PR I remember that when I had made one PR in the CNC of Glossary it almost took one month to get it merged and I learned a lot in that process and how to technically write some terms and how to describe it in a more simple language then practice self-compassion be kind to yourself understand that making mistakes or getting stuck is a part of learning process don't be too hard on yourself and when things don't go as planned, they're just fine so ask for help so it's okay if you don't know everything no one does and especially as mentees we are here to learn so it's okay sometimes we just can't find an answer because we're not looking in the right places or the answers are very project specific so I myself have asked very basic questions over the years and my mentors have been more than happy to help me out so the best way to deal with it is being open about the questions that you have except that you have had some role in your successes this is so important because you are here because of your hard work and no one can take that away from you if anyone else had achieved everything that you did you probably would give them credit for it so a lot of this invalidation that you don't deserve where you are sometimes at least for me I have seen comes from social media so maybe getting a reality check on that seeing if it really makes sense to compare yourself for that person all of these things really help and you need to acknowledge the fact that you're here because of you stop comparing yourself to anyone so a little related to the previous point but I know this is a lot easier said than done but you need to identify who you're comparing yourself with so as a student I cannot compare myself to someone who has years of experience in the industry it just doesn't make sense so identifying who you're comparing yourself with and if you're really fascinated by someone's work you can connect with them the best part about open source is the connections that you make so this approach has helped me a lot to connect with folks from all around the world I have learned a lot I've gotten to upgrade myself especially because of these connections so the best way is connecting with people writing about it so about two years back when I was still pretty new to open source I felt like I wasn't doing enough and I usually express through writing so I wrote a blog about it and surprisingly after the statistics but surprisingly it got the most views or a lot of response so I noticed that a lot of people feel this way and whenever we write about it we are able to check our facts we tend to come to logical conclusions so even though this is for maybe someone who expresses the most through writing it might help almost anybody so it's a must try strategy being wrong doesn't make you a fake the most human thing that we do is exaggerating our mistakes and undermining everything that we have done before this so making sure that it's okay to be wrong and you might not know everything is okay and it does not make you a fake faking things actually does work so fake it till you make it sometimes it does not make you a fraud neuroplasticity literally means shaping your brain by pretending so when you started walking we all fell but that didn't make us a walking imposter so we were just learning so that's okay and we need to keep trying and that's probably how we can beat imposter syndrome so on a concluding note we just want to say that imposter syndrome is when we doubt ourselves and feel like we are faking it however it's important to recognize that almost everyone faces it even the most accomplished ones and only by acknowledging this we can find comfort in knowing that we are not alone in our struggles moreover it's crucial to remember that there will always be someone ahead of us and someone behind us we are all at different stages in life embracing the fact that you are upscaling yourself every day will reduce the burden of you feeling like an imposter when you find yourself in the grip of imposter syndrome don't hesitate to reach out to mentors and your friends share your feelings about it and those who have walked the similar path might help you get valuable insights and encouragement we have been now contributing to open source projects for almost two and a half years and we still ask a lot of questions but increasingly we find ourselves in the conversations where we are using and understanding the language that was unknown to us a few years ago and the biggest difference isn't just in the terms of what we know but is that the new questions we have no longer make us question whether or not we belong here so yeah thank you I hope you liked our presentation it was the first time we were talking we are sweating buckets here so if you have any questions you can just ask yeah yeah that's actually a really good point as in like what a mentor can do to make the mentee feel better something like that yeah maybe to overcome the imposter syndrome so maybe regular feedbacks something like acknowledging the work that they are doing or the learning that they are doing in order to maybe sometimes we have to work we have to learn a lot to even make a small change or make a small PR so maybe acknowledging the fact that so much of hard work has been put into just doing something small maybe something like that might help at least I think for me getting acknowledged really matters after my LFX mentorship I got a message from my mentor appreciating the things that I did and that made me feel really good and I felt more as if I am in the right place I am contributing to the right project so I think that should help thanks any other questions anything thank you very much for this talking about this important topic how do you see you said like a mentor they have their full-time job and they are busy and as a or as a student or as like somebody as a mentee how much time would you like when you say hey are you working 20, 30 how many hours a week how much time should a mentor put like reserve and keep free to have actually time for being a mentor I'll take that question so I don't think that mentor should keep a fixed time deciding that okay I'll give 10 hours to this mentee helping him with this project instead whatever doubts they have generally mentors appreciative mentees do some research about the project do their homework and then ask questions then mentees are also happy to help them more and you know explain about the project more instead of just sliding into DMs and say hey I want to contribute how do I do it so yeah I don't think they can be like fixed hours to help improve someone but it's something that mentors can both do it like coordinating something like that I hope that answers to be specific I think both of the mentorships that we've done we usually used to have weekly or bi-weekly calls which were like about an hour and if we had any doubts about the work that was assigned for the week we could just drop them a message and they could answer whenever it was convenient for them so really just one or two hours maybe a week but even this one hour was usually more than enough so I guess yeah thanks thank you very much, well done it was a very concise and clear talk from the mentee side how would you advise someone to seek for a mentor so where do you establish a relationship mentee and mentor in your experience and what could mentees do to find mentors I missed the first three minutes sorry for that maybe you explain how you got into mentees okay okay so what we have done throughout is usually whenever we see a project that we want to contribute to we do a little bit of research and we find out who the maintainers are the ones who are active we usually text on the public Slack channels or Discord or wherever first and if we do want to personally connect then we just drop a question in the public chat saying can we message you DM you personally and then maybe from there we can connect we can ask them and if it is an official mentorship then we usually have the mentors assigned so we can directly talk to them so if we're talking to a maintainer then we do it through Slack and if it is for a mentorship then we text on the public channel and then text the mentor directly that's usually how we have done it add on to that so this point may be helpful to new mentees who are watching whenever you are texting mentors don't just say hi I want to contribute to this you need to drop a full paragraph of explaining what issue you are facing what you have done before setting up the project, what you have done after then maybe add screenshots that will help mentors get in the problem at once instead of texting back and forth so that might help the new mentees actually looking out for mentors there's also a website for that which I like to share so yeah so this is the website which I found so basically it just explains all the rules that whenever you are texting someone senior or whenever you want some help don't just say hi or hello just explain the whole thing and they'll read through it and they'll explain you and contact you much in a better way last question how hard do you think it is to find a mentor or what is the likelihood from your experience for you to be reaching out and someone actually dedicating time to helping you and becoming a mentor generally in our case when we reach out to contribute to some projects we first read through the issues of course and see who have opened that issue and then contact them personally and then if they are willing to help but if they are not they connect us with someone who is also working on that issue and that's generally how we get started contributing towards it sometimes it might be hard to find a dedicated mentor like one-on-one mentors but asking the questions publicly in the channel generally helps any other questions okay thank you so much for listening thank you