How to find coaches

During RailsGirls Summer of Code you will ideally pair up with a partner student which will make it easier for you to stay on track, stay motivated and solve problems at hand.

But there will be times when you need additional support, thus finding a coach or a team of coaches is crucial. Coaches should be around to help you with not only questions about programming, but also generelly the way of working on an Open Source project remotely, discussing things on GitHub, sharing your work, getting feedback from the community etc.

Use all the communication channels you have :) Tweet a lot! Use Facebook, Email, etc.

The best way to find coaches probably is to reach out to your local RailsGirls and Ruby (or whatever developer) communities. They'll have more ideas who to contact. You can also email our mailinglist http://groups.google.com/group/rails-girls-summer-of-code so in case we know a coach in your area we can put you in touch.

Once you have found a pair student and/or a coach we recommend to meet up personally. Make this known to your local communities as well and invite others to come, too. This will spread the word and you'll get more input and ideas.

How much do coaches need to be available?

The "Students" page says that your coach should ideally be around for "at least a few hours a day", which sounds very steep. The question how much coaches do need to be available highly depends on your skills and your project. So, "a few hours a day" is just a very rough recommendation.

If you feel you can work with less than that, explain to us how in your application. Eventually we'd like everyone on your team to be convinced that you'll have enough opportunity for getting good support, so you can get pointers, learn and successfully work on your project.

Here are a few ideas how to make things easier for coaches.

• Coaches can team up and share the work.
• Coaches can talk to their companies about being allowed to do support during their work time. Some companies have a "Google-style" rule that allows developers to work on anyting for e.g. 20% of their work time. Other companies might be interested
• There will be chatrooms where students can get remote help quickly. We hope lots of coaches from the worldwide RailsGirls community will be available. Also, support for specific code related questions can be found on GitHub, Stackoverflow etc.