Building the Framework of the Future with CNCF Students

Tips for students to overcome challenges and find mentorship in the cloud native industry

• Research potential mentors and align goals and interests
• Approach mentors professionally and provide meaningful insight into your background and interests
• Utilize open source projects to gain experience and build your resume
• Collaborate with diverse communities to foster innovation and knowledge sharing
• Overcome communication barriers by asking specific questions and seeking out mentorship
• Manage time effectively to balance coursework and open source contributions
• Combat imposter syndrome by recognizing your value and belonging in the community

Many students face the challenge of not having enough coding experience to contribute to open source projects. However, open source projects can be a great way to gain experience and build your resume. One student shared their experience of contributing to a Kubernetes project, which initially seemed overwhelming due to its complexity. However, with the help of mentorship and guidance, the student was able to make meaningful contributions and gain valuable experience in the cloud native industry.

Oftentimes folks new to cloud-native need help finding a mentor and getting started with open source, whereas projects need help finding new long-term contributors. As the ecosystem grows, it is essential to have a sustainable framework that streamlines this process. This talk builds upon the previous CNCF Students' talk at KubeCon NA 2022. There we introduced a mentor-mentee framework to build the next generation of cloud-native. In this talk, Kunal and Mark will share the future initiatives of CNCF Students (github.com/cncf/students) and ways folks can contribute to the mentor-mentee framework that they are building for the community. The talk starts with laying down the challenges, then launching the framework to CNCF Students, what’s new since we started developing it and how the open-source community can leverage it. Kunal started CNCF Students and grew it to a few thousand members with the community's support. So a key motivation for this talk is to emphasise on building the next generation of cloud-native, donating it to the CNCF and making it open to contributions. Since CNCF Students launched, we have seen a significant increase in the number of contributors, mentees, attendees at KubeCon, etc., but it continues beyond here.