marilu’s blog

It’s just arrived the end of my internship at the FSFE. In March I’ll come back to Italy.
Five mounths of internship abroad is a big opportunity for a student to learn what is working in an international context.
Only after this working experience a student can really understand what he studied for a lot of time and acquire new knowledges.
Yes, it is probably too early to write this in my blog but during next week I’ll partecipate to FOSDEM, so I will not have a chance to thank.
I have to say, I really enjoy partecipate to the foundation’s activities, which are a real and invaluable resource for experience.
About my internship I can say that I’m really satisfied.
Yes, sometimes working in an european context is not so simple: you have some problems with the language, is not easy communicate your ideas…but you can learn a lot!
The important is doing a working experience where everyday there are new activities to do and to learn.. I can say that FSFE is one of those place.
Yes this is a celebration of 5 mounths of interniship. This is a celebration of a community that I have come to know and admire.
The FSFE is a collection of individuals who work for the society and was a pleasure work with very intelligent, funny and patient people.
It was good to meet and talk to many people.
In addition, I managed to get to see different place and culture.
So many thanks to the Zurich office that supported me and learned me some computer’s knowledges and to be critical when is necessary.
I hope we will continue to see the foundation growth!

The access to the source code has a big value also if we are not programmers; the fact that 24 hours a day all over the world the software is developing, realize the idea of being part of a system, and this is in contrast on using only a program.

I’m just returned from my first international conference about Free Software. I was really lucky because I also had the possibility to partecipate to the first FSFE fellows meeting…Yes is only a month that I started my internship in Zurich office and I had the opportunity to meet the most part of the team members and a big part of the fellows!

The computer’s world is very strange: you work and speak all the days of your life with people that maybe you’ve never seen! For this reason I think that organised a fellows meeting was a great idea…an idea that must repeate in the future to trasform the work that the Foundation is doing is something concrete and that really exist!
Is necessary that I tell something about these great experiences to the others fellows that unfourtunately couldn’t partecipate to the events.

Before arriving in Bolzano my mind was thinking what kind of strange people could I meet: usually I immagine fanatic people of computer very stressed and not sociable. People that can only speak with maths formulas and see you like a number and not a person!…
But what I discover at the SFSCon and the fellows meeting is that everyone should partecipate and support these events, because as the majour speakers of the conference said ‘Free Software and Free Software Foundation are argoument that should associate all kind of people’, and notonly programmers or students of informatics…I’m the evidence of this!

I have to admit that work an international context, with different culture backgrounds is sometimes a little difficult, is necessary to achieve a compromise but was fantastic saw in all the partecipants the same incredible enthusiasm!…Maybe free Software is more powerful than
differences!

The only diffrence that is possible find is the number of men and women that are involved in these manifestation…So as a woman I try to use my blog to exort people, in particolar female people, to be courious on what happen around us!

To do an internship in Switzerland, where everything is different to Italy, is just a fantastic opportunity…but can do it at FSFE is a very formative experience.
I think I am a very lucky person to have this chance.
Usually do an internship means do fotocopies for old employees and to clean their computers!..
It is very hard for students improve their knowledge, because nobody spends time to explaine  what is your responsability, and day by day your enthusiasm goes away!
But here everything is different! You can study and learn new works!…You don’t worry about the fact that maybe you don’t have the right knowledge, people here think that you can learn everything…if you want!
Only in these case a stage is better than study on a book!
Your curiosity to understand what are the dynamics of the job, how to resolve the problems, increases every day.            
Here I can feel beginner, but not stupid at all!