Opportunities for Graduates Not Enrolled in a Degree-Seeking Program?

[Vishal Puppala]

Hello,

My name is Vishal Puppala. I'm a graduate from Washington University in Saint Louis where I majored in biology, and mathematics and computer science. I already have a research background in neuroscience and am currently looking to grow my experiences in software development. My specialty is in Python, but I'm also comfortable in C++, Java, and R. Also looking to gain some experience in Julia. Contributing to projects in physics and astronomy is something I've always been interested in and I'd love to gain more experience in applied scientific computing. 

I know the current mentorship infrastructure is for students interested in Google's Summer of Code, but is there is any way I'd still be able to contribute? I'm not expecting to be admitted into a formal program, but I'd still be interested if there are informal opportunities to contribute. I think my math background, prior scientific research experience, and eagerness to learn and venture into a new domain equips me well for this task.

Please let me know if there are any possible opportunities! 

Thanks!

Vishal Puppala

[DVD PS]

Hi Vishal,

Welcome to Open Astronomy! You are free to contribute to any open source
project, don't need to wait for a person to give you permission (that's
the beauty of open source 😉).

First you need to find the sub-organisation that attracts you the most -
either because the topic or the technology they use. Then visit their
issue tracker and look for the "good-first-issue" label. If you don't
find any, join their chatting platform and ask whether someone knows of
a good issue to start with.

Try to fix it, ask for help when you get stuck and open a pull-request
early (now you can mark them as draft if it's not finished), ask for
comments and review. When it's done you get another issue of their list,
and repeat.

Good luck!
David