Hi everyone, I am Archit Kaushik, an undergrad student at JSS Academy of Technical Education, Noida.
At the very outset, I would like to state that I had great summer vacations coding under the BOSS program. I thought I must give the event a chance and I stayed on board so far so good.

As a beginner, contributing to Open Source projects can seem like a daunting process. You would search for different projects on GitHub and find the results bemusing and may consequently give up. I have been there myself. I trawled through pages to find great Open Source repositories to contribute to, only to notice that I did not know how to start.
I had used GitHub for some personal and college projects but had never worked on any real open source project. I wanted to prepare for GSOC (Google Summer of Code) but realised that I should start small. One fine day, I came to know about BOSS through here and it interested me. While going through all the details I found a little typo on BOSS info page and there I created my first PR even before BOSS had actually started. It was small but it made me feel that I can contribute. The rest has been a great experience.

I have normally worked on the front-end technology stack to a limited extent from my personal desk but to come out in open and compete against other budding brains was a very nice experience. The program has benefited me in several ways which include:

• The issues generated had to be worked upon before anyone else so I was always on my toes working to get the solutions the earliest.
• The people besides me have given totally different perspectives to problem solving which put forward a broader view towards problems.
• The moments of appreciation assuring my PRs to be good, have instilled me with great confidence.
  The zeal was such that I have worked upon things even during end semester exams and I could put all efforts pent in. I expect to have worked finely.

Many people have asserted to take part in the upcoming versions of BOSS on witnessing my participation, so I see it as a growing platform among the budding developers.

Cheers to all!!