Why Computing Students Should Contribute to Open Source Software Projects
&gt;  in the 21st century programming proficiency on its own is neither representative of the skills that the marketplace requires from computing graduates, nor does it offer the strong vocational qualifications it once did.<p>Universities are not vocational education facilities though. Time a student has in university is better spent on getting deeper understanding of things that are hard to pick up in the workplace, and that give you a better picture of the industry in the long run<p>Conversely, Jira-fu, unit testing, peer reviewing etc. is something a junior engineer learns in their first year at work. And burdening open source maintainers with training students in these issues is hardly a good idea. In my (probably unpopular) opinion, it&#x27;s better to start contributing to open source projects after having some experience with real projects at work, not the other way round. Just because at work one has a supervisor and optionally a buddy&#x2F;mentor, which open source projects have no opportunity to provide.