What we look for in students • Hacker News Board

Re: What we look for in students

#21

Post by nicholasjbs » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:23 AM UTC

semisight wrote: post #12

I really want to do this at some point, but I'm still in college, and the schedule never lines up with when school starts and ends. Have any college students attended hacker school/what do you guys think about college students attending? (I'm a Comp Eng major btw).

College students are completely welcome, and we've had a number attend (everyone from first year undergrads to fifth year PhDs). We typically have the most during our summer batch, where it's been ~10% undergrads and ~10% grad students the past couple of summers.

We've also had a number of students who have taken a semester long leave from their BS/MS/PhD program.

We try to make our summer batch work for students, but with such variation in university schedules, it inevitably conflicts with some schools. I'm sorry to hear yours is one of them :(

Re: What we look for in students

#22

Post by nicholasjbs » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:25 AM UTC

bnchrch wrote: post #19

Just curious. Could someone ballpark the minimum cost to support yourself to go to hacker school? this is something I've been thinking about doing.

It depends a lot on your circumstances (e.g., if you have student loans, dependents, etc), but if you're just supporting your self and are willing to live cheaply, you can do it on $5 to 6k (this number is based on an informal poll of our students I did a few batches ago; it's also what I personally live off of during a batch).

Re: What we look for in students

#23

Post by deepGem » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:36 AM UTC

nicholasjbs wrote: post #6

lquist wrote: 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 t…

What about people who have switched from programming into management, rejected that, and have gotten back to programming :)

Re: What we look for in students

#24

Post by ankitml » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:42 AM UTC

cuttooth wrote: post #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 ha…

The tuition assistance is precisely for this reason that majority interested are men. The assistance is supposed to increase the interest among women.

Re: What we look for in students

#25

Post by cheesylard » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:43 AM UTC

Just applied. Crossing my fingers. Thanks for posting this.

Re: What we look for in students

#26

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:50 AM UTC

bti wrote: post #13

xinn wrote: post #11

You forgot "You are financially well-off." And here I was, excited at the prospect of an easy way out of this agonizing feedback loop.

Are you female? They have tuition assistance for women. Apparently men don't need financial assistance...

[deleted]

Re: What we look for in students

#27

Post by lindzey » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:53 AM UTC

qnk wrote: post #15

I really feel that I meet all the requirements mentioned here, but sadly, I was rejected for the previous batch. Looking back, I want to believe that I was rejected because I was living abroad and they probably felt I wasn't really sure about moving to The U.S. They also need people who can legally work here as the referrals are their business model. Well, I came here anyway on a sabbatical year. Been learning iOS pr…

I'm a student in the current batch, and can confirm that their ability to make money off recruiting fees is not a factor in the admissions decisions - I made it very clear in the admissions process that I would not be looking for a job after the batch, because it only seemed fair to let them filter on that if they wanted to. It was and has continued to be a non-issue. In fact, the founders/facilitators I've talked to are enthusiastic about my plans, and offered me great advice.

Re: What we look for in students

#28

Post by wismer » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:56 AM UTC

Regrettably, I'm not an autodidact and my ADD can sometimes get in the way when to learning programming. Knowing this from an applicant, does that dissuade you from accepting that person?

Much of what I have learned in programming already was simply finding ways to automate tasks at my current job - the motivation to learn was there, I suppose, and helped keep the ADD at bay. But, for all I know the stuff I wrote could just be child's play and no real indicator of talent. Something that led me to change my mind about applying a few months ago. Have any of your students felt something similar before they started attending?

Re: What we look for in students

#29

Post by dbancajas » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:59 AM UTC

Hi, This will be a tldr. I am a senior PhD student this fall 2013. I have always wanted to sharpen my C++ OOP skills and overall programming skills. I'd like to think I have a good grasp of computing systems since my phd is centered around computer architecture/vlsi. But in most times, when I read other people's code, mostly simulators with 50K-100K lines, I have a hard time following through as I think my fundamentals are not really strong. I spend about half the time learning new language intricacies I didn't know rather than understanding how the whole thing works. I have made some efforts into advancing my own understanding of the languages by studying in my own time (currently on Accelerated CPP by Koehnig) but then a conference paper deadline suddenly comes up and I have to reallocate my efforts. If not a conference, my professor will be writing a proposal and needs my help. I feel like there is always something that takes away my focus in learning. Would I make a good candidate for hacker school? Sometimes I feel like you guys are looking for Android/iOS/Ruby/Php programmers, although you have clearly stated that HS is language-agnostic, I still feel like I'd be the lone wolf in HS trying to learn advanced C++..

Re: What we look for in students

#30

Post by bgilroy26 » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 4:59 AM UTC

cuttooth wrote: post #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 ha…

The money is an extra, it's added on. It's not as though they thought about paying for everybody and then took it away for men, that would be silly.