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Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

hackerschool.com

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Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#11

Post by omilk »

nicholasjbs wrote: post #6
haon99 wrote: post #2

I'm not against affirmative action on principle, but does anyone else find it a little strange that the need-based grants are only available to female programmers? They could bias the admission process in favor of female applicants (or other underrepresented demographics) without conflating financial issues, right? Or there aren't even enough female applicants without this incentive to allow for that?

We take this approach specifically because we don't do any affirmative action or bias our admissions process in favor of specific groups. These grants are our hack for how to have a more gender-balanced environment without negatively impacting men or lowering the bar for women. The grants work because they increase the pool of qualified women who are able to do Hacker School. Also, to clarify, the grants are funded b…

> "We take this approach specifically because we don't do any affirmative action or bias our admissions process in favor of specific groups."

You're giving grants to women specifically because they are women. That's a bias. You're favoring a specific group. What about the men who haven't applied because they can't afford it and aren't women? You should be giving grants to underprivileged people regardless of sex. But that wouldn't get you or the companies sponsoring the grants nice press release, now would it?

Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#12

Post by MWil »

Serious question: Can someone recommend a program or type of program to code for my example that would show I'm capable? I'm a self-taught beginner but I want to tackle something that would be more intermediate to demonstrate I have gumption.

Right now I'm coding an entire redo of my state's legislative site because I find it lacking in too many ways but there's not really any JS in there that I would say is impressive (plus that's how bad their site is).

Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#13

Post by throwmeawayii »

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I've applied to Hacker School twice and found them to be short, impersonal and sometimes even rude to me during the interview process. They asked questions that struck me as inviting me to participate in "dickwaving" rather than talking about the nuance of my work or the problems I've engaged with. Such as "what's the hardest thing you have ever done?"

I've never seriously thought about the work I've done on any continuum of what's hard and what's not, I think about my code in terms of the other people that have to work with it, and whether it addresses the problem. And for me personally, what I have learned from individual projects. Sure some things are more challenging than others, but what do you really learn from the answer to that question? It's also an intimidating starting point coming from someone putting themselves in a position of authority to decide whether you are "good enough" for their program. And surprising from a group of hackers who in their pitch to potential applicants emphasize that your experience isn't as important as your love of programming and attitude about learning. I'm usually eager to try out new things and look forward to new stuff to learn rather than dwelling on what my "conquests" are. It struck me as the engineer bro equivalent of "what's the hottest girl you've ever hooked up with?" Maybe the point isn't to do "the hardest thing" but to learn and to do cool stuff that serves the people who interact with your software?

Also one of their interviewers called my code "shaky" after pairing, which could be true, but it's not very constructive or specific is it? It could be that I got extremely unlucky because the things they write on their blog are very uplifitng and intelligent. And one of my friends did Hacker School and generally had positive things to say. But I really felt like I was treated terribly as an applicant, and the facilitators came off as having a high regard for themselves and engineering arrogance rather than being interested in helping people and being constructive.

Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#14

Post by nicholasjbs »

omilk wrote: post #11
nicholasjbs wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We take this approach specifically because we don't do any affirmative action or bias our admissions process in favor of specific groups. These grants are our hack for how to have a more gender-balanced environment without negatively impacting men or lowering the bar for women. The grants work because they increase the pool of qualified women who are able to do Hacker School. Also, to clarify, the grants are funded b…

> "We take this approach specifically because we don't do any affirmative action or bias our admissions process in favor of specific groups." You're giving grants to women specifically because they are women. That's a bias. You're favoring a specific group. What about the men who haven't applied because they can't afford it and aren't women? You should be giving grants to underprivileged people regardless of sex. But…

To clarify:

1) We judge male and female applicants on exactly the same scale. We in no way lower the bar for women or any other group. Nor do we give women or any other group a leg up when making admissions decisions.

2) We offer grants to women who need financial assistance. By offering these grants, we do bias the pool of applicants, because we (hopefully) increase the number of women who choose to apply.

3) We have put a tremendous amount of time, energy, thought, and effort over the past few years into making Hacker School free for everyone, and we continue to work very hard to continue making this possible. We effectively give all our students a $10-15k scholarship by not charging any tuition.

Our great crime appears to be the fact that we have not yet found a way to additionally give money to everyone who can't afford to come to Hacker School.

Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#15

Post by rjbond3rd »

MWil wrote: post #12

Serious question: Can someone recommend a program or type of program to code for my example that would show I'm capable? I'm a self-taught beginner but I want to tackle something that would be more intermediate to demonstrate I have gumption. Right now I'm coding an entire redo of my state's legislative site because I find it lacking in too many ways but there's not really any JS in there that I would say is impressi…

Hmm, how about if you build some kind of API to the legislative site's data somehow? Bills coming up, etc.? Or whatever data is there. Then a widget could display the data on other sites. Just a (very conventional) thought.

Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#16

Post by rhgraysonii »

omni wrote: post #8
rhgraysonii wrote: post #3

If I am a programmer who just finished a bootcamp and has some decent side projects (a book on clojure web dev, a new take on spreeder, and some other ones in the works) that are all open source, is hacker school far above my skill level for working with you guys? I've perused the website far too many times in the last several months but have held off from applying because I wasn't sure if i had the chops to work wit…

You'll be fine. If you like programming and it sounds like Hacker School would be fun, you should apply. The minimum experience you need to have a good time and learn a lot is very low, and if you're writing a book on Clojure web dev then I'd bet you're way past it. Source: I'm a current Hacker School student

Disclaimer: the book is written under the pretense of "by a beginner, for a beginner", so it isn't exactly the best material ever, but I feel I'm getting good coverage on the main topics. I'm currently pushing hard for people to peer review the initial chapters before I continue into the next bulk of it so I can make sure the style its being done in is conducive to learning the material effectively. I don't want to plug it here because I'll seem like a shill, but if you are interested I can share the link privately.

Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#17

Post by j2labs »

throwmeawayii wrote: post #13

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I've applied to Hacker School twice and found them to be short, impersonal and sometimes even rude to me during the interview process. They asked questions that struck me as inviting me to participate in "dickwaving" rather than talking about the nuance of my work or the problems I've engaged with. Such as "what's the hardest thing you have ever done?" I've never seriously thought abo…

What you refer to as "dickwaving" is them attempting to understand your eye for detail. Great hackers often have fantastic eyes for detail. You might have one, but you missed your chance to demonstrate it by interpreting this so negatively.

Please read the Hacker School Manual for a look at how seriously they take treating people with decency and respect: https://www.hackerschool.com/manual

Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#18

Post by rhgraysonii »

Jayschwa wrote: post #7
rhgraysonii wrote: post #3

If I am a programmer who just finished a bootcamp and has some decent side projects (a book on clojure web dev, a new take on spreeder, and some other ones in the works) that are all open source, is hacker school far above my skill level for working with you guys? I've perused the website far too many times in the last several months but have held off from applying because I wasn't sure if i had the chops to work wit…

> I've perused the website far too many times in the last several months but have held off from applying because I wasn't sure if i had the chops to work with you guys Sports analogy: "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" People who get into HS fall all along the experience spectrum. Some have only been programming a few months, and some have been programming professionally for decades. Most are somewhere in be…

I didn't know they had that attitude with repeat applicants. That is really great, actually. I'm currently barely in a financial boat to support it due to some exigent circumstances, but I will definitely be applying next batch in that case :) Thanks for the words of encouragement! I just encounter so many ridiculously intelligent folk in this realm it gets imposing to think about working with many of them or even considering myself on the same level. Maybe my confidence is more important than I thought and should worry about it alongside my code and not put it aside completely.

Re: Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School

#20

Post by throwmeawayii »

j2labs wrote: post #17
throwmeawayii wrote: post #13

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I've applied to Hacker School twice and found them to be short, impersonal and sometimes even rude to me during the interview process. They asked questions that struck me as inviting me to participate in "dickwaving" rather than talking about the nuance of my work or the problems I've engaged with. Such as "what's the hardest thing you have ever done?" I've never seriously thought abo…

What you refer to as "dickwaving" is them attempting to understand your eye for detail. Great hackers often have fantastic eyes for detail. You might have one, but you missed your chance to demonstrate it by interpreting this so negatively. Please read the Hacker School Manual for a look at how seriously they take treating people with decency and respect: https://www.hackerschool.com/manual

That's exactly my point. I've read the hacker school manual. I'm suggesting that they are not very good at practicing what they preach, at least in my experience applying to hacker school.
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