Looking for a North Carolina Team

Good Morning,

I am a multi-media illustrator by job title which offers skills in photoshop, illustrator, flash, and web design. I am also a student in the process of obtaining my Bachelors of Science in Information Technology and a tad over half way done. I have tried many Linux Distros however I keep coming back to Ubuntu. I truly like the UI aka "Unity" compared to other distros UI JDK or Gnome. I do want to strengthen my skill and be apart of building such a great OS. If anyone mind pointing in the right direction would be great. Thank you kindly and hope to hear back from you:)

Spaceghost