Motivation

In 2022, we hope to revamp CSESoc Projects into a deployment focused team with more experienced coders. However, this leaves a gaping hole in providing learning opportunities to newcomers. This initiative spawned as an attempt to address this issue. Our main priority for 2022 will still centre on CSESoc Projects.

Problem

Currently, there is no central space for students to work on personal projects. Despite their extreme importance in developing skills and rounding out resumes, many students are at a loss for where to even begin outside the rigid structure of a university curriculum. Those that have the know-how work in isolation when instead their projects should be celebrated and used to inspire future CSE students.

Vision

We hope to create a developer community within CSE where students can engage with and inspire others who share a common passion for coding (either new discord or subspace within current CSESoc discord). Everyone is welcome, regardless of experience or ambition. The ultimate aim is to provide all students with the kickstart they need to begin their development journey and a vibrant community to keep them going. To do this, there are 3 key things we must consider:

1. How do we inspire people to create projects?

2. How do we maintain their passion?

3. How do we encourage 1st year participation to maintain the ecosystem?

The truth is, these things all already exist under various CSE portfolios but are fragmented and disjointed. We just hope to bring them together in a single community to improve cohesion and enhance impact.

1. Plan to Inspire

Back in 2019, a then 1st year student named Hoya Lee created a covid tracker website and a course-review website. After posting it to the UNSW and CSE facebook groups, he became recognised almost overnight and sparked many people’s interests in coding personal projects. This was followed by podcasts and workshops, prompting numerous people to approach him for advice on how to get started (myself @James Ji (Unlicensed) included). I think it’s a missed opportunity to not recreate this vibe. We plan to inspire with continuous (fortnightly?) spotlights on student projects throughout the year.

• Short demo videos

  • Seeing cool projects makes people want to create their own

  • Experienced devs would love their projects to be spotlighted

• Podcasts/interviews with the devs can provide further insight on how to get started

• Articles, community Q&As, anything to spark interest

• Collab with #Media @Amanda Lu (Unlicensed) @Unlicensed user @Keith Xiao (Unlicensed)

2. Plan to Motivate

CSESoc hosts many competitions which garner great interest and generate great projects but it’s all short lived. When a competition ends, people leave and the once thriving community vanishes as people go their separate ways… And why wouldn’t they? There is no longer a goal to aim for. We plan to motivate by running a constant stream of competitions and coding events

• A personal projects competition every term with:

  • Themes (productivity app, text-based game, etc)

  • Popular vote (engages entire server)

  • Miscellaneous (and fun) award categories (most likely to become a startup, cleanest code design, etc)

• Leaderboard competitions with low barriers for entry

  • Simple card game bot (e.g. Coco) with live-update leaderboard

• Hackathons, coding competitions, other code-related events will all be held in the same place for continuity

• Collab with #Competitions @Hanyuan Li (Unlicensed) @Ryan Shi (Unlicensed)

3. Plan to Sustain

In order to grow this community, we need to encourage newcomers to join. I still remember my peer mentees asking me how to start their own projects and being unable to provide a satisfactory answer other than “just look it up lol”. If only they had mentors to guide them… We plan to sustain by providing newbies with the required support on their path to becoming independent devs.

• Dev Mentors

  • Some Peer Mentors could take on this role (or even CSESoc Projects members could volunteer)

  • Can be active (leading a group) or passive (checking in on mentees)

  • Experienced devs in the server also naturally become another source of mentorship

• Streamline T1 mentees into the community in T2 after they’ve completed COMP1511

• Include beginner-focused ideas in 1. and 2.

• Collab with #Studex @Unlicensed user @Priscilla Soo (Unlicensed)

Considerations

Is this even worth it?

From experience, I’d say that most CSE students graduate without anything interesting on their githubs (excluding uni assignments). I think this is a big problem since I view personal projects as more important than actual course work when it comes to creating good developers.

This is going to take a lot of effort…

True. Although the framework for many of these ideas already exist, it will take effort to tweak + combine them cohesively. However, we don’t have to go through with everything! Even taking fragments (personal project spotlights) would be good.

Who would run this?

I imagined it initially as a collaboration between Projects + Media + Competitions + Studex. If it grows enough, we could create a dedicated role for this community.