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What we look for in students

hackerschool.com

1–10 of 54 posts

Re: What we look for in students

#2
Hacker School's filtering process seems to work well. I've been in two batches, and it has continually surprised me how they manage to bring so many smart people together, yet avoid the outwardly-arrogant assholes that seem prevalent in a traditional Computer Science or Engineering university setting.

Re: What we look for in students

#6
post #4

One negative signal for us is if you previously programmed and then stopped (e.g., you studied CS and then become a product manager). Interesting. Why is this a negative signal?

It depends on the specifics of the situation, but it can be a sign that the person doesn't actually like programming. This isn't always the case -- e.g., we've had alumni who had stopped programming to raise families -- but it's frequently true (e.g., for people who study CS and then get an MBA. When they apply to Hacker School it seems more often than not they're looking to find a cofounder or learn enough to hack together a prototype and aren't interested in programming as a craft, which is totally cool but not a fit for Hacker School).

Re: What we look for in students

#8
post #7

why is there a requirement of moving to nyc? An outlying suburb, borough or state isn't good? like living in nj etc.

There's no requirement to move to NYC proper. We should make it clearer that we mean the metro area. We have several students commuting from NJ this batch.

Re: What we look for in students

#10
I'm fine with a program like HS existing if people want to join it, but I'll have no respect for them until they treat both genders equally in terms of the tuition assistance.

Note that I'm all for women joining the program, but I'd presume people with the time to commit to the program are a) not working, and b) don't have much money, so it's completely unfair to exclude men to receive assistance just because they happen to be of the majority who are interested the field.

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