Open Stack

Hey guys,

My name's Aayush and I'm a rising junior in college. I took courses in networks and databases last term and really liked both, and after hearing about OpenStack, I really want to contribute code to the project and learn more about the system. I figured reading through the code and running it in a debugger would be great to understand how it works, but before that, are there any suggestions you guys have about the prerequisite knowledge required to make contributions? I'm referring to books/papers that it would be good to read to understand what OpenStack does at a theoretical level before actually jumping in and trying to add code.

Sorry if this is the wrong place, and thanks in advance for your help.

Best,
Aayush