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Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

hackerschool.com

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Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#11

Post by niggler »

jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

Let's be fair here -- the grants originally were sponsored by Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2012/etsy-hacker-grants-suppor...), so your angst should be directed at Etsy's policies, not at Hacker School.

Let me also say that Nick and Dave (and I assume the others) are awesome people.

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#12

Post by rll »

jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

Jerry, of course it is unfair. But life is rarely fair. This is more about barriers than fairness. Being a woman in a male-dominated field is rough. There are a lot of barriers to overcome along the way. This grant is simply removing one barrier in that path. Has removing this barrier made the path fair now? Definitely not, the path is still very unfair to women. We have a long way to go, but like I said, life is rarely fair, we can only strive to try to make it fair along the way.

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#13

Post by jerrya »

niggler wrote: post #11
jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

Let's be fair here -- the grants originally were sponsored by Etsy ( http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2012/etsy-hacker-grants-suppor... ), so your angst should be directed at Etsy's policies, not at Hacker School. Let me also say that Nick and Dave (and I assume the others) are awesome people.

Without checking the link, and assuming you are correct, I think Hacker School would be advised to make the grants from Etsy known, and leave it at that.

Make them known so that students who are accepted can apply to Etsy for the grants, but otherwise have little else to do with it. And that puts responsibility for the discrimination on Etsy.

And perhaps ask Etsy if they can't make their grants available to need based students regardless of sex and gender identification.

---

Angst means fear or anxiety (anguish is its Latinate equivalent, and anxious, anxiety are of similar origin). The word angst was introduced into English from Danish angst via existentialist Søren Kierkegaard. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or inner turmoil.

I think it's prejudicial and bullshit to describe my protest against a sexist discriminatory grant as somehow an expression of angst.

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#14

Post by jrajav »

lfranchi wrote: post #10
jrajav wrote: post #4

I would probably like participating in something like this, but it's not really an option being on-site. Seems like it's geared towards students on summer leave, and not those who may already have a job or other obligations.

I quit my software engineer job to attend Hacker School (Fall 2012). Undoubtedly the best decision I have made in the last 3 + years. I am now once again working as a software engineer, and would not trade those 3 months at HS for anything.

Thanks for the anecdote! I may actually consider it.

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#15

Post by nosefrog »

jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

Any attempt to alleviate the gender inequality within the industry should be applauded, not derided. The current deficit of women programmers is because of our culture's discrimination against women who program. People in software development encouraging women to participate are simply fighting against this cultural discrimination. If you really flagged this post because you think the grant is unfair, I would advise you to rethink your philosophies.

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#16

Post by lfranchi »

jrajav wrote: post #14
lfranchi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit my software engineer job to attend Hacker School (Fall 2012). Undoubtedly the best decision I have made in the last 3 + years. I am now once again working as a software engineer, and would not trade those 3 months at HS for anything.

Thanks for the anecdote! I may actually consider it.

Awesome! I'm happy to go on at (much) further length about why it's so awesome and why you and any hacker absolutely should consider it.

Feel free to shoot me an email @gmail.com if you have any questions!

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#18

Post by gfodor »

nosefrog wrote: post #15
jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

Any attempt to alleviate the gender inequality within the industry should be applauded, not derided. The current deficit of women programmers is because of our culture's discrimination against women who program. People in software development encouraging women to participate are simply fighting against this cultural discrimination. If you really flagged this post because you think the grant is unfair, I would advise…

We can agree that it would be good to increase gender diversity in the industry. But you are making a leap without enough evidence to say that the reason it exists is because of "our culture's discrimination against women who program."

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#19

Post by akarpenko »

nosefrog wrote: post #15
jerrya wrote: post #3

I am flagging this. I am flagging this precisely because I believe the Hacker School experience is valuable and yet you offer a sexist and discriminatory grant to women. Hacker School is valuable due to the experiences, the education, and the networking opportunities. Do you offer scholarships for living expenses? We offer a limited number of $5,000 need-based grants for women to do Hacker School. You can apply for a…

Any attempt to alleviate the gender inequality within the industry should be applauded, not derided. The current deficit of women programmers is because of our culture's discrimination against women who program. People in software development encouraging women to participate are simply fighting against this cultural discrimination. If you really flagged this post because you think the grant is unfair, I would advise…

The right solution would be to get women interested in technology from an early age, not by raising the numbers artificially by creating a sexist scholarship.

Re: Apply to seventh batch of Hacker School

#20

Post by nosefrog »

akarpenko wrote: post #19
nosefrog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any attempt to alleviate the gender inequality within the industry should be applauded, not derided. The current deficit of women programmers is because of our culture's discrimination against women who program. People in software development encouraging women to participate are simply fighting against this cultural discrimination. If you really flagged this post because you think the grant is unfair, I would advise…

The right solution would be to get women interested in technology from an early age, not by raising the numbers artificially by creating a sexist scholarship.

When you want to solve a problem, is it better to wait until someone else implements what you believe to be the "right" solution (assuming you don't have the resources to do it yourself, which in this case neither etsy nor hacker school do), or is it better to simply do what you can with the resources you have to try to solve it?
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