Fwd: [GSoC Mentors] Announcing GSoC 2021 with a few changes
Jason Moore
From: 'sttaylor' via Google Summer of Code Mentors List <google-summer-of-...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 7:04 PM
Subject: [GSoC Mentors] Announcing GSoC 2021 with a few changes
To: Google Summer of Code Mentors List <google-summer-of-...@googlegroups.com>
Hello GSoC Mentors and Org Admins,
We are pleased to announce Google Summer of Code 2021, the 17th consecutive year of the program!
As many of you might have heard if you attended the Mentor Summit a couple of weeks ago (or chatted with someone who did) we are making a few changes for the 2021 program. We’ve spent a lot of time evaluating the GSoC program and have been looking at where we can make some changes to help meet the #1 goal of GSoC - bring new, diverse contributors into your communities that stay in your communities after their GSoC program ends. And with the challenges of the pandemic and the strains it has put on everyone’s time (students, mentors and org admins alike) we are looking to provide more flexibility in 2021.
What are the changes for 2021 from 2020?
- Smaller project size - all students participating in the 2021 program will be working on a 175 hour project (instead of a 350 hr project). This change will also result in a few other changes including the student stipend being cut in half.
- Currently we are missing out on many wonderful students who could never commit to such a huge project and time commitment but would be great contributors to your community. This is a significant change as we now are no longer strongly encouraging students to focus only on GSoC over their summer. Students have many other responsibilities especially during the pandemic that make it hard for them to spend 30 hours a week on a project.
- We realize this is going to require all of you to think about smaller projects and update your project ideas which is why we wanted to give you 3+ months to start talking it through with your communities.
- The mentor stipends will be adjusted to $400 per student mentored. In feedback from the mentor summit it was pointed out that the effort from mentors will not be half as much even though the project size is cut in half so we adjusted from $250 to $400.
- Shortened coding period - the coding period will be 10 weeks with a lot more flexibility for the mentor and student to decide together how they want to spread the work out over the summer. Some folks may choose to stick to a 17-18 hour a week schedule with their students, others may factor in a couple of breaks during the program (for student and mentor) and some may have students focus 30 hours a week on their project so they wrap up in 6 weeks. This also makes it a lot easier for students with finals or other commitments (weddings, etc.) to adjust their schedules.
2 evaluations (instead of 3) - There will be an evaluation after 5 weeks and the final evaluation will take place after the 10th week. We are also no longer requiring students complete their first evaluation (though we encourage them to do so), so if a student doesn’t complete the first evaluation they will not automatically be removed from the program. They are still required to complete the final evaluation.
Eligibility requirements - In 2020 there are many ways students are learning and we want to acknowledge that so we will be allowing students who are 18 years old AND currently enrolled (or accepted into) a post-secondary academic program as of May 17, 2021 or have graduated from a post-secondary academic program between December 1, 2020 and May 17, 2021 to apply to the GSoC program.
- What this means is that now the program will be open to folks participating in a variety of different academic programs, not just accredited university programs. This includes licensed coding camps, community colleges, and many other programs that may not be accredited yet but are post-secondary academic programs.
These changes were made to help find more diverse students who we hope will stay involved in your communities after their GSoC ends. We look forward to these changes and will definitely be getting feedback from all of you as the 2021 program goes on to see what is working and what we should consider adjusting for any possible future program.
The program announcement, timeline, marketing materials (slide deck, flyers), FAQs, and short videos with tips for mentors and students are all available. You'll also notice the 2020 program has now been archived.
Organizations -- If you would like to apply for the 2021 program please start thinking about the ~175 hr projects you would like students to work on and also reach out to your community members to ask if they would like to be mentors for the program. Having a thorough and well thought out list of Project Ideas is the most important part of your application.
Encourage other open source orgs to apply -- Please also consider encouraging other open source projects to apply and be a first time GSoC org - we’re hoping to accept more orgs in 2021 than ever before with a good number of them being first time orgs. When orgs apply they can put your org down as a reference.
Please note that Org applications will open on January 29th.
We are looking forward to another exciting year of GSoC!
For any questions about the programs please email us at gsoc-s...@google.com
Best,
Stephanie Taylor
GSoC Program Lead
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Aaron Meurer
that students will now be expected to work 17-18 hours a week for 10
weeks, or else work 30 hours a week for 6 weeks. I think it's a good
change overall because a lot of students have school work that
coincides with GSoC, so even in the past they have already been
working only part time. For SymPy, we will need to adjust our
expectations for our project ideas to be less than what we would have
expected in the past. We will also need to adapt our org application.
I think our mentoring should for the most part stay the same, where we
require students and mentors to meet weekly. The only difference is
that students will need to specify in their proposals how they plan to
split their time across the 10 weeks.
My biggest concern with the new rules is the reduced stipend, which
could have consequences of raising the barrier of who can apply.
Aaron Meurer
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Amit Kumar
My biggest concern with the new rules is the reduced stipend, which
could have consequences of raising the barrier of who can apply.
Psycho-Pirate
Aaron Meurer
actually only ~1 month of full time work, which can be spread out as
part time work over several months if desired. And even if it is
strictly speaking less money for a smaller amount of time, students
who might want to use GSoC to get some income over the summer may now
need to find an additional source on top of GSoC. It may be easier for
them to just find a single internship somewhere else that pays more.
What I meant by a barrier to who can apply is that people have access
to higher paying summer internships will be less likely to apply to
GSoC. This is already a problem, in my opinion, as we have seen much
fewer applicants from countries like the US, especially relative to
what would be expected given the size of the population of US college
students in CS or math programs. These people are only likely to apply
to GSoC if they prefer it for more idealistic reasons, such as that it
offers the ability to contribute to open source. This can also be
viewed as a positive argument, and Google generally spins it this way.
Whether it is a net positive or not, I'm not sure. I can only say it
definitely does reduce the number of applicants of this type.
On the flip side, a lower amount prevents people who can only afford
to get a job that pays up to a certain amount, because they need the
money. This tends to affect people from lower income countries more.
This effect would be most strongly seen from the change they made a
few years ago to adjust the stipend to be different for each country
based on purchasing power parity. Actually, I was surprised that after
this change, the number of applicants from India did not appear to go
down, even though the stipend was significantly reduced there. I'm not
really sure what to make of that, other than perhaps the effect I
mentioned above that biases against more privileged students is
stronger than the effect against less privileged ones. I don't have
any data to back any of this up, though, only what I have noticed
personally from the changes in applicants to SymPy over the past
several years. I should also note that these do not necessarily only
affect things across country lines, as even within a single country
such as the US, students have a wide range of income levels and other
circumstances that can affect how they view GSoC as something they
would want to apply for.
As an aside, it's unfortunate that this was forwarded to the list
instead of copy-pasted. The responses to this list are now lost in the
responses to the original mentor list in my email.
Aaron Meurer
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> Amit
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