GSoC or Goole Summer Of Code one of the most prestigious opportunity to get involved into open source sofware development and also get a paid internship ;)
People usually wait till their sophomre year to participate into GSOC, but I think that one should atleast try to participate and give it a try if you know the basics of programming which one learns in his/her freshman year itself as it would help in getting acquainted with open source and an opportunity to learn a lot of new things.
Step 1: What I would suggest is to go and check the list of orgs selected this year here , read the details about all orgs and find the one whose idea attracts you. If you are getting confused about selecting org then just shortlist your most preferred orgs.
Step 2: Now go to the org’s website and read everything (Most orgs have a well organized documented details) about that particular org mentioned on its website.(Till here you must have selected one org to which you would like to contribute).
Step 3:Now find the languages which are used in the source code of that org. Start learning that language (C++, Python, JS, php, etc).
Step 4:Now after completing the basics of the language, sign up on github and find the source code of that org and start reading it and understand its working. If you find anything which you don’t understand in the source code just take help of Google and understand it, in this way you will not only learn the language but also you will actually learn the practical implementation of the language in real life. This will make you acquainted with the source code of the org and give you an experience of handling large code bases.
Step 5:Now after you are totally acquainted with the org and its code base, connect with the developers of the org using their mailing lists or IRC. Connect with the people and let them know that you are willing to contribute to the org.
Step 6:Find issues on github , try to solve them and submit a pull request, ask the developers to review it and get it merged into the code base.
Step 7:Now you are familiar with the working of open source. Start working on an idea for the development of org with the developers and come up with a nice proposal, get it reviewed from your mentors and submit it.
Step 8:Get selected for GSOC….!!!