My name is Celina, and I’m getting my degree in Computer Science with a specialization in databases at the Polish Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw.
I first heard about Major League Hacking (MLH) Fellowship from a friend. I truly am grateful for having a chance to apply twice and getting in both times! I first participated in the Open Source track, and then participated in the Software Engineering track. It was crazy but amazing! I spent 24 consecutive weeks with an amazing MLH community and incredible mentors from G-Research.
The MLH Fellowship experience was incredibly valuable to me. I constantly recommend the program to my peers, and below is an overview of what I tell them to convince them to apply!
My Collaboration with G-Research
During the MLH Fellowship, I contributed to two open source projects developed at G-Research. The first project was Ephemeral Github Runners, where I learned how to automate deployment workflows using CI/CD. Together with my teammate, Lorenzo Drudi, we also created three fully working GitHub Actions to automatically deploy and destroy self-hosted Github Runners, to clean up offline Github Runners, and to clean up rogue instances from AWS.
The second project was to contribute and build a new README for G-Research OOS Siembol’s main GitHub repository. Through this experience, I was introduced to the importance of documentation and learned how to update a repository to improve the readability and quality of information. I really enjoyed working on both projects!
My Average Day as an MLH Fellow
A typical day would consist of either pair programming or working alone on a specific ticket assigned by our mentors. A couple of times a week, you could participate in MLH-organized events which featured many talented speakers working in tech. One of my favorite sessions was a series of meetings called “Cracking the Coding Interviews” led by Arsalan Khattak. If you are like me and are also terrified of coding interviews, I highly recommend it!
What I loved about MLH the most was that a different time zone didn’t limit my ability to perform well at all! Despite having multiple meetings scheduled during the week with teammates and mentors located in many different countries, MLH provided us with the flexibility to work on our projects during the hours that fit our time zones the most.
Supportive & Inclusive Community
I can truthfully say that MLH community is nothing but very welcoming and supportive. Mentors were eager to devote their time to help and explain new topics. Team Leaders were diligent and caring, always making sure that everyone was having a pleasant experience. I can confidently say that I made many meaningful connections.
A group selfie of pod FAL.22.1 on our last day in the program.
Applying New Skills to My Thesis
While participating in the MLH fellowship, I was lucky enough to join a DevOps team at G-Research. I learned a great deal about CI/CD and GitHub Actions and currently, I am implementing the automation and testing techniques for my senior thesis project at my university.
My mentors from the DevOps team shared extensive and incredibly helpful tips on how to use the Git and GitHub environment to the fullest when developing an open-source project. Being able to notice similarities with open-source projects and apply them to my group projects at school was a true game-changer for me!
Interested in the MLH Fellowship?
For more information about the MLH Fellowship and to apply for the program, visit our website here. Stay connected with Celina on LinkedIn here!