Also to build up credibility as a developer. My concern as a student is that there isn't a huge community of other open source developers around - so by working on these projects, I'm missing out on the chance to build something with a fellow student, work on my own startup, etc. (consider that substantial programming takes a lot of time)

And tech meetups are great, but it seems a waste of these few years to be going to them instead of meeting the people around college.

So I don't know. You tell me?