Thing I Contributed To

CSHPublicSite

A project that serves as the public-facing website for Computer Science House, showcasing events, members, and the community’s history.

Why I Picked It

This was my first contribution to a Computer Science House (CSH) open source project. Even though I’ve been a member of CSH for a while, I hadn’t previously taken the time to get involved in any of our open source projects. I chose this one because I’ve been browsing the CSHPublicSite repo for a while, and I noticed a section on the site that mentioned “one project per freshman”, a tradition that hasn’t been active for some time. Since it misrepresents what new members actually experience, I figured this would be a good first fix to get my feet wet with contributing.

Getting Involved

The process of jumping in was smoother than I expected. The readme made it clear how to install dependencies and preview the site locally using Jekyll. I followed the setup instructions and was able to spin up a local server. What stood out to me was that the project was well-organized. SCSS partials were modular, assets were clearly separated, and the HTML was easy to follow. I didn’t have to dig through complex React states or JS-heavy templates. It felt very welcoming to a beginner contributor. The maintainers of the project were also responsive to me, but I am a member of CSH so that may affect how easy it is to contribute.

The Issue

While reading through the about page, I noticed that there was still a section about “one project per freshman”. This isn’t current anymore, and having it publicly listed could mislead prospective members. There wasn’t a pre-existing GitHub Issue filed for this.

The Fix

I removed the HTML section referencing the outdated freshman project requirement from the homepage content. Specifically, I edited the about/projects.html file and deleted the paragraph block.

Fix

Here’s the relevant commit

The PR was titled:

Deleted one project per freshman to align with current practice

And here’s a snippet of my pull request comment:

“We haven’t done one project per freshman since I’ve been here, so it would probably be a good idea to remove it from the pubsite.”

This is what the website looked like before my changes. Before

This is what it looked like after my changes. After

Was It a Solid Effort?

Yes, I believe this contribution was appropriate and valuable. It didn’t require a complex code change, but it improved the accuracy and professionalism of our public-facing content. I verified the local build after the change and checked for any rendering issues.

Was It Accepted?

Not yet, I am still awaiting a response from our webmasters.