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Graduating from an Open Mentorship Experience

A photo of the crowd at the 1,000 Outreachy interns celebration in India from behind. This photo shows the stage for the celebration, decorated with several balloons.

What happens once you graduate from an open mentorship experience depends both on external factors (e.g. industry, pipelines designed by programs) and internal (e.g. your aspirations and ambitions, your current and future time commitments). Here are a couple of common (but not exclusive) outcomes of open mentorship experiences:

  • Continuing a mentoring relationship with your mentor
  • Becoming part of a core team of maintainers
  • Switching careers into a different field
  • Looking for employment in your desired field
  • Searching for another open mentorship experience
  • Becoming a mentor yourself

We recommend you have an vision for what outcomes you desire for your open mentorship opportunity either before it starts or develop one during the Alignment period. This will help your mentors and your community build an experience that will take you where you want to be.

Alumni networks

Open mentorship programs may have official and unofficial alumni networks. Bonding with people who went through the same experience may help you in the next steps of your journey; keeping in touch with program channels may find you your next opportunity.

Outreachy encourages alumni to stay on our Zulip server and curates an Opportunities channel. We've hired two Outreachy alumni — Anna e só and Tilda Udufo — and we've worked with several others to organize celebrations to commemorate our 1,000 interns milestone. Our open mentorship opportunities may be transient, but we strive for building a lasting community of our own.

Derivative programs

Some alumni may even create open mentorship programs of their own! For example, Big Open Source Sibling was created by Outreachy and Google Summer of Code alumni. Derivative programs may target a specific geographical location or address a specific issue they've identified during their own open mentorship experience (e.g. open mentorship opportunities often require some level of English proficiency, restricting access to them).

Closing words

We hope this handbook helps you find the best open mentorship opportunity for you! This learning path was created by consolidating over 15 years of work with mentees all over the world. If you're going through an open mentorship experience or you're an alum and want to contribute to this learning path, please do! You can create an issue to suggest new sections or chapters, or submit a merge request. We wish you success and luck in your journey as a mentee! And if you're interested in becoming a mentor, definitely check out the next learning path!