By: Abhranil Singha Roy Featuring: Ayushman Bhattacharya
Badges: [holopin.io/@abhranilsingcloud](https://www.holopin.io/@abhranilsingharoycloud#https://www.holopin.io/@abhranilsingharoycloud#)
I'm a first-year college student, and this was my very first time doing anything like this — first time in college, and first time genuinely stepping into the tech world outside of classroom assignments. Hacktoberfest was my entry point into open source, and I went in not really knowing what to expect. October started with a simple goal — contribute to open source, learn something meaningful, and figure out how real projects actually work outside of college labs. What I didn't expect was walking out the other end of the month as a Hacktoberfest Super Contributor, as a complete beginner. I want to give a full shoutout to Ayushman Bhattacharya (@circuitovertime), whose Holopin profile and open-source journey genuinely inspired this run. If you haven't checked out his badge wall at holopin.io/@circuitovertime, go do that — it's a masterclass in consistent contribution, and exactly the kind of thing I was aiming for as someone just starting out.
HOW IT WENT: PRs Submitted → 25 PRs Merged → 16 Repos Touched → 9 Weeks Active → 4 (full October) The month was not smooth from day one — especially as someone who had never opened a real pull request before. Early PRs got closed, some with feedback and some without. But that friction was the point. Each rejection taught me how to read a codebase faster, write better commit messages, and actually understand what a maintainer needs before I even open an issue. A lot of this was stuff I had never been taught in any class. By the second week, something shifted. I stopped picking issues just because they looked easy enough for a beginner, and started picking them because I had something real to add, even if it took longer to figure out. That's the difference between doing Hacktoberfest and doing it well — even when you're new to all of it. One of the highlights was contributing to an open-source project I had started using myself — fixing outdated setup instructions and adding a couple of examples that I remember struggling to find when I was setting things up for the first time. As a beginner, getting that merged felt like proof that you don't need years of experience to add real value.
THE SWAG: The Hacktoberfest kit arrived and it did not disappoint — a quality T-shirt, holographic sticker sheet, enamel pins, and a limited edition notebook. For someone in their first year, getting an actual tech kit in the mail felt like a small milestone in itself. The T-shirt has already been worn around campus.
No extra goodies from individual maintainers this time — the official kit more than covered it, and honestly, just seeing my PRs get merged meant more to me than any swag could.
THE HOLOPIN BADGE WALL:
This was the part I underestimated. The Holopin badge wall at holopin.io/@circuitovertime (Ayushman's board, which set the benchmark) is a visual record of everything you shipped. Each badge is an organization saying: you contributed something real here — which, as a beginner, was a huge confidence boost to see building up over the month. The Super Contributor badge in particular is not just a decoration. It's a marker that says you held a consistent quality bar across the whole month, not just for a single lucky PR — even while balancing it with first-year college work. WHAT I'D TELL ANOTHER BEGINNER STARTING OUT: → You don't need to be "good enough" yet. Pick repos you actually use — the quality of your PRs goes up immediately when you understand the product as a user first, even if you're new to the code. → Read the contribution guide before touching anything. Every time. No exceptions. It saved me from a lot of avoidable mistakes. → Talk to maintainers early. A single comment on an issue thread can save you hours of working in the wrong direction — and most maintainers are surprisingly patient with beginners who ask good questions. → Don't chase the badge. Chase the merge. The badge follows. → Expect rejections. They're not a sign you don't belong — they're basically free mentorship if you read the feedback properly. THANK YOU; To the maintainers who took the time to review a first-timer's PRs, leave feedback, and explain things patiently instead of just closing the issue — thank you. None of this would have meant anything without that. To DigitalOcean and everyone behind Hacktoberfest, for running an event that genuinely makes open source feel approachable to someone brand new to all of it — thank you for the push I needed to actually start. And to anyone reading this who's thinking about trying open source for the first time — thank you for getting this far. If a first-year student who'd never opened a PR before could do this, you absolutely can too. CLOSING: Hacktoberfest 2025 was my first real introduction to open source, to college, and to working on something outside a syllabus — all at once. It won't stop in November. The habit is already set, and I want to keep building on it alongside everything else this first year throws at me. Big credit to Ayushman Bhattacharya (@elixpohere) for being the kind of contributor whose work makes others — even total beginners like me — want to show up and build. Check his Holopin board, follow his GitHub, and go contribute something today. — Abhranil Singha Roy [blogs.elixpo.com](https://blogs.elixpo.com/abhranilsingharoyhttps://blogs.elixpo.com/abhranilsingharoy) ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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