Re: [Qemu-devel] GSoC mentor summit session "how to bind students long-term"

[Stefan Hajnoczi]

On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 04:00:34PM +0200, Alexander Graf wrote:
> During the GSoC mentor summit there was a pretty interesting session on how 
> to get students to stick with your project even after GSoC has ended. So far 
> we haven't really been exactly successful in that respect :). I'll just post 
> my notes below:
> 
>   - send successful students to conferences
>   - set expectations on what we expect from students after gsoc, lay out the 
> achievement plan for students to times beyond gsoc
>   - give students responsibility, make them maintain parts (makes it harder 
> for them to just leave, because they feel obliged)
>   - shove students to community, no sidechannel communication, make them do 
> A&Os on the public list

My personal experience being a GSoC student was that responsibility and
fellowship matters most - it's what makes contributing addictive.  It's
one thing to do an interesting project for 12 weeks but another to stick
around because the group of developers have become your friends and you
feel responsibility and satisfaction from supporting users on
IRC/mailing lists.

The easiest way to give students responsibility is to get them actively
involved in supporting users on IRC/mailing lists and fixing bugs.
Doing this in addition to the official GSoC project is more likely to
keep them hooked.  It helps turn them into a QEMU expert and someone who
can help others - and hopefully they'll want to continue using this
skill once the summer is over.

Stefan