GSOC 2017/Student Application stephenonnen

Contact Information

Name: Stephen Onnen
Email Address: stephen.onnen@gmail.com

About Me

As you can see by the title, my name is Stephen Onnen; I'm 29 years old and currently serving in the US Army as a Ranger Instructor in northern Georgia. I am married, and my wife and I just had our first child, a boy, last summer. I have been serving in the Army for over ten years now, and have been serving continuously since I graduated high school in 2006. I love the military, but I know my future is in software development and I plan on transitioning out of the military at the end of my contract this September and moving back to Des Moines Iowa(my hometown) with my wife and child.

I have always been fascinated by technology, and am currently working towards my Associates in Science degree, which I should have by the end of this summer. After achieving my associates, I will continue my education, working towards a Bachelors in Software Engineering. Though my current job is an Infantryman, and instructor at Ranger School, I still am the primary computer jack of all trades in my workplace, and also handle all our administrative systems at my unit for Ranger School. I also developed and implemented a Microsoft Access database that my Battalion uses for our administrative boards at the end of each Ranger class.

Though I have not completed any formal training on software development, in my free time I have been learning C#. Mostly just basic CLI applications thus far. I also have a good deal of experience with basic HTML and CSS, and I am also very proficient with Adobe Photoshop and Inkscape.

Why the Fedora Project?

The Fedora Project has always been "so cool" to me, for lack of a better way to describe my feelings. I have always poured over fedoramagaine, and since beginning to use Linux 2 or 3 years ago it has been a love affair with Fedora from the start(Actually began using Korora). My experience in the military has brought me face to face with RHEL being used in different systems, and I have always felt that if it is secure enough for the US Military, it has to be good enough for me. I have also always been drawn in by the sense of community and professionalism that bleeds from every

Why the ASP.Net Project?

About You - Consider these questions

       Do you have any past involvement with the Fedora Project or another open-source project as a contributor? What kind of contributions have you made (code and non-code)? Please share any public contributions you have made (urls, etc.)
       What are you studying? Why?
       What motivates you to do your best? How do you stay focused? Briefly describe how you organize your work. 
   Why Us? - Consider these questions
       Why do you want to work with the Fedora Project?
       Do you plan to continue contributing to the Fedora Project after GSoC? If yes, what sub-project(s) are you interested with? 
   Why This Project? - Consider these questions
       Which specific project interests you? If you are proposing your own project, do it here. If you are proposing the project, explain why it benefits the community.
       Have you contacted the mentor(s) listed for the project?
       What relevant experience do you have for this project?
       What do you want to gain from this project?
       Describe this project in your own words. What does it mean to you? What do you think the final deliverable is? 
   Why should we choose you over other applicants?
   Propose a rough schedule for this project. Ideally you will have regular deliverables throughout the entire period.
   What are you specific plans from May to September (eg: Exams in university, internships, vacations..etc). We need to know if there are periods of time where you are likely to be unavailable. We are better at accommodating these periods if we know of them in advance.