An ideal education with Open Source, a Recent Grad's Perspective.

The open source world is one filled with opportunity, for collaboration, for learning, and brimming with experiences. It allows for ideas and communities to come about regardless of background, for the sake of a common goal. If only I knew about it sooner. I learned of open source in my last semester of college, and I believe it can transform our education as it is now. Let’s propose a thought experiment. Suppose that you are back in college and open source is a widespread concept in education, not as it is right now, but as widely known as the idea of internships, for example. Opportunities for open source projects would exist for every discipline, allowing for the collaboration among students from art, literature, business, engineering, and more. Open source would be more diverse, allowing for other disciplines to pick up the work where another may falter. A developer might be too clear cut to write out friendly documentation for newcomers to a project, and a writer might be too non-technical to explain certain technologies in depth, but both people collaborating could create great documentation. If it sounds familiar in any way, it is essentially how people work in the real world, at a company. Meaning, that if you had open source in your education you could adapt to working with other disciplines that are not studying the same thing as you, on a project that can have a real world impact. College students would trick themselves into creating their own company, a pseudo startup. Many ideas flourish in young minds, but never come to fruition, maybe due to lack of resources, or not having the right people around. A lot of times, given a lack of knowledge, or the overwhelming feeling of doing lots of work that could have no impact, they never see the light. College is a place filled with diversity of knowledge and experiences, like open source. If a school club existed which allowed any major to join, bundle together, and create an open source project of their choosing while leaving each student a piece of the puzzle to fulfill, it would essentially have the same structure as a real company, more or less. Think about the many app/company ideas that have crossed your mind. Would you have tried to make them if you had open source? Students can experience the real world and create a real project, from the comfort of their home. People have different circumstances, and many students fail to gain experience in their field right out of college. Whether it be personal circumstances, failing to get chosen for internships, or not having the time to do extracurriculars, there are many reasons why students fail to learn what real world work is like. Open source projects would allow a student to apply their skills regardless of time frame or location, given that they have a laptop on hand. Moreover, these skills can be directly applicable into the real world, as you work with people with different backgrounds towards a common goal.