Entering my Outreachy internship with Fedora, I was very intimidated. My project was to “Extend Zezere, the Fedora IoT onboarding web app, to support the FIDO device onboarding spec and imp.” I chose this project during the contribution phase because, well, I’ll be honest, the competition in this project was shallow. I started this program with a lot more unknowns and even more unknowns that I did not know I did not know (no, I did not repeat the phrase). I didn’t know what “extend zezere” meant, I had no idea what “FIDO device onboarding spec” was, and I had never provisioned an IoT device before, let alone onboard it using the new standards.

On the first day that I got assigned to this project, everything seemed incredulously difficult. I got my nose into reading numerous articles and watching YouTube videos to get an idea of what I will do over the next few months. Well, despite all that research, I felt stuck. And then the kick-off meeting happened. It was there that I realised it’s okay to ask for guidance. My mentors welcomed my doubts and sent me demo videos and articles to get familiar with the platform. And since then, we have had weekly syncs where the RedHat team would meet and discuss the progress on the project and any roadblocks I’ve been facing.

Once, I asked my mentor- “I have a doubt, and it may sound silly, but what do we mean by ’extending a voucher.’” And in the next meeting, he rephrased the same question to another team member, “it might be a silly question, but what is extending a voucher” and that made me feel that any question I had would be answered without judgement. Since then, whenever I face a roadblock and nothing helps, I pester the team with my questions. And they always welcome it, often giving important references, pointers and starting points.

I wouldn’t say everything is smooth sailing now. It often isn’t. Learning is hard! But I am no longer afraid of the challenge. We may struggle to understand something. We may make a lot of mistakes when we practice new skills. And that’s okay because everyone struggles.