Background
I normally don't write code for open source. But a coworker mentioned they had participated in this event last year. In return you get free swag and discount coupon(s) for Digital Ocean resources after completing the challenge.
This caught my interest because it was a great opportunity to learn what all the fuss was about, and get some free stuff at the same time. It was an incentive that got me to step up to the challenge.
But besides that; I already have a badge on my public GitHub profile as an "Arctic Code Vault Contributer" but the amount of contributions I made were barely satisfactory (to the best of my expected level, personally I had felt). So I had no excuse not to join.
What I liked about this event
What I didn't expect was after collaborating with other developers, sharing code online to discuss & review infact felt really good (as well as reviewing code in projects I maintain myself).
I could pick whichever repository I want that caught my interest and do my changes, and if I achieved the goal from what those maintainers requested then awesome! I've made a contribution.
What next?
Hacktoberfest is just the beginning for me. I've been a developer for 7+ years and majority of the time I had contributed to mostly closed source development.
My goal now is to find projects I'd be interested in, learn more about them and their purpose and find an area to challenge myself and contribute back. At the same time I will grow my skills set & keep learning.
What I Learned From Hacktoberfest
Being a first time open source contributer felt amazing, and while at first it's intimidating, if you take the time to look for projects or issues that match your skill set (or slightly higher), challenge yourself to make the contribution you can learn, grow and realize that actually open source development isn't all that scary or unrewarding at all and infact the opposite. And most importantly it's fun when you do it at your own pace!
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