GitBook: [master] 46 pages and 9 assets modified

README.md

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-# opportunity-handbook
+---
+description: 'Summarising learning from Opportunity Project, my fellowship with Rethink.'
+---
+
+# Premise
+
+This handbook is a compilation of advocacy, guidance and resources as part of Opportunity Project.
+

SUMMARY.md

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+# Table of contents
+
+* [Premise](README.md)
+* [Handbook on Applying to Opportunities](about/README.md)
+  * [How to use this handbook?](about/how-to-use-this-handbook.md)
+  * [Where to find opportunities?](about/where-to-find-opportunities.md)
+  * [How to validate opportunities?](about/how-to-validate-opportunities.md)
+  * [Dealing with your inner Demons](about/dealing-with-your-inner-demons.md)
+  * [Approaching the Application](about/approaching-the-application/README.md)
+    * [Research](about/approaching-the-application/research/README.md)
+      * [Why Research?](about/approaching-the-application/research/why-research.md)
+      * [Where to find information?](about/approaching-the-application/research/where-to-find-information.md)
+      * [Critically evaluate your discoveries](about/approaching-the-application/research/critically-evaluate-your-discoveries.md)
+      * [Taking Notes](about/approaching-the-application/research/taking-notes.md)
+      * [Rethink’s Wikipedia of Opportunities](about/approaching-the-application/research/rethinks-wikipedia-of-opportunities.md)
+    * [Familiarise the Application Process](about/approaching-the-application/familiarise-the-application-process.md)
+    * [Beginning your Application](about/approaching-the-application/beginning-your-application/README.md)
+      * [Laying down the groundwork before you begin](about/approaching-the-application/beginning-your-application/laying-down-the-groundwork-before-you-begin.md)
+      * [Thinking through what you will be writing](about/approaching-the-application/beginning-your-application/thinking-through-what-you-will-be-writing/README.md)
+        * [Deciding on your Focus Point](about/approaching-the-application/beginning-your-application/thinking-through-what-you-will-be-writing/deciding-on-your-focus-point.md)
+    * [Writing your shitty first draft](about/approaching-the-application/writing-your-shitty-first-draft.md)
+    * [Review](about/approaching-the-application/review/README.md)
+      * [Self-Review](about/approaching-the-application/review/self-review.md)
+      * [Peer-Review](about/approaching-the-application/review/peer-review.md)
+      * [How to request for a review?](about/approaching-the-application/review/how-to-request-for-a-review.md)
+  * [Resolving your queries](about/resolving-your-queries/README.md)
+    * [Best Practices on drafting your query](about/resolving-your-queries/best-practices-on-drafting-your-query.md)
+    * [Rethink’s Peer Learning Communities](about/resolving-your-queries/rethinks-peer-learning-communities.md)
+  * [Common Application Questions and Guidance](about/common-application-questions-and-guidance/README.md)
+    * [Best Practices](about/common-application-questions-and-guidance/best-practices.md)
+    * [Essays: SOP and others](about/common-application-questions-and-guidance/essays-sop-and-others.md)
+    * [Recommendation Letters](about/common-application-questions-and-guidance/recommendation-letters.md)
+    * [Video Tesitmonial](about/common-application-questions-and-guidance/video-tesitmonial.md)
+    * [Resume](about/common-application-questions-and-guidance/resume.md)
+    * [File managing made easy](about/common-application-questions-and-guidance/file-managing-made-easy.md)
+  * [Best Practices on Applying to Opportunities](about/best-practices-on-applying-to-opportunities.md)
+  * [Improving your odds of getting selected](about/improving-your-odds-of-getting-selected.md)
+  * [Building some essential skills](about/building-some-essential-skills/README.md)
+    * [Locating Information using Search](about/building-some-essential-skills/locating-information-using-search.md)
+    * [Emailing](about/building-some-essential-skills/emailing/README.md)
+      * [Writing Good Emails](about/building-some-essential-skills/emailing/writing-good-emails.md)
+      * [Professional Email Behaviours](about/building-some-essential-skills/emailing/professional-email-behaviours.md)
+      * [Investing in your own personal Email ID](about/building-some-essential-skills/emailing/investing-in-your-own-personal-email-id.md)
+    * [Building your Online Presence](about/building-some-essential-skills/building-your-online-presence.md)
+  * [Get Started Checklist](about/get-started-checklist.md)
+  * [Contributors](about/contributors.md)
+  * [Contribute to this Handbook](about/ack..md)
+

about/README.md

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+# Handbook on Applying to Opportunities
+
+There are tons of opportunities out there for college students to pursue. Scholarships, Internships, Volunteering positions, Competitions and Mentorship programs, only to name a few.
+
+**But why should you care?**
+
+Opportunities such as these help students build skills, acquire real world experience and add in credibility to their profiles while still in college. The world out there is competitive and everyone’s looking for what’s unique about you. Today more than ever, there is a need for you to be well-equipped with professionalism and 21st century skills.
+
+Having some of these prestigious opportunities under you belt will go a long way in adding that touch of uniqueness to your story and will speak volumes for you. Some of these opportunities also translate into job opportunities. In 2017, 3 girls from Kerala secured jobs at Microsoft as a part of the Grace Hopper Student Scholarship.
+
+Having said that, the pursuit towards achieving these opportunities is a learning journey in itself. Many recipients say that the journey was truly life changing and that it brought out more clarity about them and about their own goals. They say that instilled a new wave of confidence in them and they were all set to take over the world as they graduated.
+
+College is a time when you have an abundance of a resource: Time. Where you invest your time upon will determine what you’ll go on to do upon graduation. Most of us are unaware of what it is that we’d like to pursue. Trying out couple of these opportunities and living the fresh experiences that these bring in can really help us understand a bit more about what it is that we wish to do.
+
+Finally, these opportunities are fun! Securing scholarships will ensure that you have the financial freedom to pursue your goals while in college. 8 girls from Kerala in 2017 received 2000$ to support their education as a part of the WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholarship.
+
+Getting yourself a ticket to a fully funded conference gets you free travel to a new state or even a new country! Felix Josemon, one of the 6 winners of the Google Venkat Panchapakesan Memorial Scholarship received the opportunity to travel to Silicon Valley on a full sponsorship from Google.
+
+You meet new people - some much similar to you, some much different from you. The kind of exposure that this provides you with while still in college will help you step out of your little world and have a taste of what it is going to be like.
+
+And finally your box of experiences is what you’ll cherish the most when it’s all done.
+
+So yes, you must care and you must try. For a fun, meaningful learning experience awaits you.
+
+It is indeed true that an opportunity does not knock on your door twice. So let’s get started today!
+
+<Word of caution>
+

about/ack..md

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+# Contribute to this Handbook
+
+## **If you are a scholarship recipient, I invite you to add your guidance to this handbook.** 
+
+Few useful things you can share:
+
+1. Your winning application
+2. Your thoughts on which opportunities have impacted your career and why.
+3. Your tips/guidance for applicants
+
+**Fork the Git repo for this project, make your edits and submit a pull request.**
+
+## Listing down few potential areas of improvement for the handbook below:
+
+1. Cover guidance for GSoC, RGSoC
+2. Section of Open Source Contributions as a way of improving skills and profile
+3. Section on doing your own projects
+4. Word of Caution
+

about/approaching-the-application/README.md

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+# Approaching the Application
+
+This section will cover all about how you should be approaching your opportunity application.
+
+We will look at understanding how you must approach the application form first. Then we will get to how you can answer few common application segments and also look at commonly asked questions.
+
+Generic Application Approach
+
+Let’s say you already have an opportunity in mind that you want to apply to. The following topics will look at how you must approach the application form for the specific opportunity.
+
+This is how we’ll proceed:
+
+* **Research**     
+
+  Research helps you understand the opportunity and the
+
+  organisation hosting the opportunity better. It in turn helps you
+
+  put in an application that connects better with what is expected by
+
+  the selection committee.
+
+* **Familiarise with the Application Process**
+
+  The application process begins with you familiarising about the application process and requirements.
+
+* **Prepare your application** 
+
+  Post familiarisation, you move into preparing your application.
+
+  1. _Laying down the groundwork_ 
+
+     You begin by creating a copy of the application, checklist and having all the basic documents ready.
+
+  2. _Thinking through what to write_ 
+
+     You then have to think through how you will be positioning yourself in your application.
+
+  3. _Writing your Shitty First Draft_ 
+
+     You start writing up your application by writing a shitty first draft. This draft helps you get all the content in your head, out into paper.
+
+  4. Reviewing your application 
+
+     You move on to then creating subsequent versions of your application by refining it with feedback from review.
+
+* **Best Practices** 
+
+  We shall also look at some of the best practices and tips to help you put in a successful application.
+

about/approaching-the-application/beginning-your-application/README.md

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+# Beginning your Application
+
+Once you finish up your research and familiarise with the application process, it is time to begin the application.
+
+In this section, we will cover 4 important segments on writing your application.
+
+1. Laying down the groundwork before you begin
+2. Thinking through what you will be writing
+3. Writing your shitty first draft
+4. Reviewing your application
+
+You will first need to finish up some basic prep before you begin to write the responses. As you start writing, you will need to spend some time thinking about yourself, your goals and how this opportunity really fits in your story. This part may be the most difficult or uncertain but it is going to be the most rewarding one too.
+
+As you begin to write, you may feel stuck, lost or confused. You may feel overwhelmed with all that you wish to write in but then somehow not flowing out. In some cases, it could be the opposite too. You may want to write about everything you’ve done but wouldn’t know how to fit it all in.
+
+A part of making progress comes from accepting that you might feel uncomfortable and that whatever you write in your first draft is going to be messy and might even be shitty. This is where you allow yourself to make mistakes and write a shitty first draft of your application, just to get all the content in your head out there.
+
+What you must also realise is that your final application may look nothing like your shitty first draft \(SFD\). Your SFD is your version 0. Once you wrap this up, you will need to do a series of reviews - you will review yourself, your friends, mentors or recommenders may also review your application.
+
+After each review, you will iterate your application based on the feedback you receive to create version 1, 2, 3… and finally your final draft.
+
+Further in this segment, we shall delve deeper into each of these, understand why they are necessary and how they can really impact your application.Markdown 1964 bytes 342 words 38 lines Ln 3, Col 2HTML 1553 characters 338 words 12 paragraphs
+

about/approaching-the-application/beginning-your-application/laying-down-the-groundwork-before-you-begin.md

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+# Laying down the groundwork before you begin
+
+As you begin to write the application responses, there is some prep you need to do.
+
+### **1. Creating your Copy of the Application Form**
+
+One of the first things you should do is create your own copy of the application form.
+
+Why?
+
+Typing in responses directly into the application portal right away may prove to be your disadvantage in the following ways:
+
+1. The application portal may refresh itself after a fixed time period in some cases and if this happens, all that you typed out will instantly vanish.
+2. In the event that you forget to ‘Save the application as Draft’ or in cases where the form itself does not give you the option to do so, you might lose all that you type in the form.
+3. It is hard for you to review and make changes directly in the portal. It is even harder for you to share it easily with your reviewers and also for them to pass on specific comments.
+4. Upon submitting the application, you lose all the content that you dedicatedly wrote. Since most opportunities have similar questions and formats, the time you invest in one application form will save a lot of time for you in subsequent applications. And you will often be able to reuse the content you write once for multiple opportunities. So not saving the content you write now is going to be a mistake you wish you had not made.
+
+Right. So now, let’s call your copy of the application your working document.
+
+You need to create a copy of the application form by copy-pasting all the application questions to your working document. We recommend Google Docs or Google Forms. This makes it super easy for you to handle, edit and share. It is also easy for your reviewers to offer comments on your application.
+
+Once you finish your draft in your working document and you feel happy about it, you can go ahead, copy paste your answers into the main application form and submit it.
+
+### **2. Creating your Checklist**
+
+Most applications have a lot of questions to answer and you might quite easily miss out on one or more of them. Sometimes, it is not just the questions themselves, but the specifics of the questions or even the deadline.
+
+Suppose the application wants you submit your Resume in a pdf format and with file size less than 1MB. Ensuring that you finish your resume is one thing but making it fit to be submitted is another. So along with creating your resume, getting it reviewed, making suitable edits and finalising it, you will also have to ensure it is in pdf format and also less than 1 MB in size.
+
+Likewise, say the deadline for your recommenders to submit their letters of recommendation is the same date as your application deadline. This means that you’ll have to ensure that they finish up the letter and submit it along with you making your own application submission.
+
+To get this done on time, you’ll have to first decide on your recommenders, talk to them and obtain their confirmation, discuss your application with them, allow them sufficient time to write the letter. Finally remind them if they haven’t been able to do it and also ensure that they submitted it before the deadline.
+
+So even though the questions seem simple, the number of small tasks you need to do in completing them may be even more and with an application to write, you really might miss out on things.
+
+This is why we recommend that you use a checklist. Before you begin, break things down to the smallest level, put them on your checklist and then tick them off one by one.
+
+You may use common note-keeping tools. A google form or google keep also work well.
+
+Do also remember to set yourself reminders few days prior to your deadline or any key activity. We are all humans and we may all forget dates and deadlines. But having your calendar remember it for you can save you big time.
+
+### **3. Start filling the main application form**
+
+I know. We just discussed that we should be using a copy of the application form to fill in the application first.
+
+And that still holds for all the major parts of your application like Essays, Resume and Video. We’re talking about filling up your basic information such as Name, Email address, College and so on in the main application form.
+
+Why? - If the opportunity uses a portal to manage applications, then upon signing up and starting your application, you will receive timely reminders on completing the application. You will also be notified about changes in deadline or application formats, if any. So ensuring that you create your profile and fill up your basic details will help you stay on top of all the information.Markdown 4647 bytes 815 words 85 lines Ln 85, Col 386HTML 3698 characters 808 words 25 paragraphs
+