There is mention at the very bottom of this article that a great way to improve your Perl skills is to participate in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) or the Ou

There is mention at the very bottom of this article that a great way to improve your Perl skills is to participate in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) or the Outreach Program for Women (OPfW). I've been involved in the selection process of both of these programs for The Perl Foundation this year and in the past. This year The Perl Foundation is participating in both programs. I spend a lot of my open source time working on Perl and specifically https://metacpan.org https://metacpan.org We have both a GSoC and an OPfW participant currently working with us. They're learning a lot and contributing a lot of really great work back to the project. If you do want to get involved in something like this, my advice would be to get to know the project you want to be involved with well before the deadline. Reach out to one of the project leaders. Find out how you can get involved. Start contributing patches as soon as you can. When the time for applications comes, ask for feedback on your proposal _before_ you submit it. Writing a strong proposal is a skill in its own right and something that will benefit you in your later professional life as well. Conversely, if you lead an open source project, don't wait until the call for submissions to start trying to recruit students. Get the word out early so that you can better judge who would be a good applicant. Having this kind of experience under your belt can help a lot when considering Perl (or other languages) as a career option. I'm happily coding Perl full time, but even if that's not the path you eventually take, it's still a great tool to have access to.