The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
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Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#2If you're a student and are interested in finding a hackathon near you to participate in, check out https://mlh.io/events for a list of great events in North America and https://mlh.io/eu for events in Europe.
As someone who got their start at student hackathons (I wanted to be a lawyer before I went to my first one) and as someone who has been to hundreds of these in my life, I can definitely testify to the importance of this movement for students everywhere. This is where you learn the hard skills you need to be a programmer, designer, entrepreneur, or artist - not in the classroom.
Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#3Despite the optimistic tone in this article hackathons have definite problems. They have a contradiction between their party atmosphere and their high stakes. While they strive to provide an informal, fun event they also offer extremely large rewards (cash, internships, and even startup-funding are offered as rewards). Little seems to stand in the way of groups cheating and judging may seem incredibly subjective. Rumors abound as too how winners built their projects beforehand (a big no-no) or that the projects don't actually work. In trying to become both parties and job interviews hackathons are failing to be what they were meant to be, places to learn and create.
Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#4If you're a student and are interested in finding a hackathon near you to participate in, check out https://mlh.io/events for a list of great events in North America and https://mlh.io/eu for events in Europe. As someone who got their start at student hackathons (I wanted to be a lawyer before I went to my first one) and as someone who has been to hundreds of these in my life, I can definitely testify to the importan…
I was with you right up until "This is where you learn the hard skills you need to be a programmer, designer, entrepreneur, or artist - not in the classroom.".
If you want to have fun and really wring out your skillset as any of those things, Hackathons are a great place to do it. If you want to experience something new, if you want to meet interesting people, sure, hackathons are great. But a hackathon is a terrible environment to learn programming and entrepreneurship.
Hackathons won't help you learn, or improve at programming. At a hackathon you're slapping APIs together and writing code that just barely works well enough for a demo. You have 24-48 hours, you don't have time to learn how to do things well, that can only come with experience and often, yes, in the classroom.
If you want to be an entrepreneur, and I mean really execute on a product, talk to users, find the right niche, iterate on an idea and figure out a real business model, you won't do it at a hackathon. You're most interested in making something that will be entertaining for the audience there on that day.
I'm not a designer or artist, so I can't speak for them, but I'm sure the situation is similar. I've been to at least half a dozen hackathons of various stripes in the last few years, and while they're tremendous fun, they don't replace learning.
Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#5> Likewise, students say hackathons are an ideal way to test-drive the experience of working at a start-up before committing to a job.
I don't really understand this. Working at a startup is not about sleeping 2 hours a night and/or churning out a new products in 36 hours. It is about committing to an idea for years and continuing to persevere when everything goes wrong and things look horrible (which is inevitable).
I'm not saying hackathons are bad, they seem fun. But in terms of recruiting, I'd much rather work with somebody who spend 1 year working on the same idea, rather than somebody who has done 20 hackathons on all sorts of different stuff.
Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#6If you're a student and are interested in finding a hackathon near you to participate in, check out https://mlh.io/events for a list of great events in North America and https://mlh.io/eu for events in Europe. As someone who got their start at student hackathons (I wanted to be a lawyer before I went to my first one) and as someone who has been to hundreds of these in my life, I can definitely testify to the importan…
I was with you right up until "This is where you learn the hard skills you need to be a programmer, designer, entrepreneur, or artist - not in the classroom.". If you want to have fun and really wring out your skillset as any of those things, Hackathons are a great place to do it. If you want to experience something new, if you want to meet interesting people, sure, hackathons are great. But a hackathon is a terrible…
I think the thing that you have to remember is that there are a lot of different types of learners out there. From the sound of it, the hackathon environment is not conducive to your particular learning style (which is totally fine). Hackathons are great for the kinds of people who learn by doing or who need lots of real-world practice to master skills.
The other thing I'll point out is that a lot of "hard skills" that you need to be successful at those things are not necessarily technical. Examples: learning to work on a team, learning to deal with things going wrong on a deadline, learning to explain your work to other people. So, don't forget about those benefits too!
Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#7We have company sponsored hackathons for internal projects. At first I dug it, but beginning to think this mainly serves to squeeze a weekend of work out of devs and to get something done fast, sometimes fast != good/sustainable/performant/well tested.
But hey, free tshirt and unlimited diet coke, so that is something :-/
Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#8[deleted]
Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#9> Likewise, students say hackathons are an ideal way to test-drive the experience of working at a start-up before committing to a job. I don't really understand this. Working at a startup is not about sleeping 2 hours a night and/or churning out a new products in 36 hours. It is about committing to an idea for years and continuing to persevere when everything goes wrong and things look horrible (which is inevitable).…
One thing that the author missed, but might shed some light on your point, is that many of the top student hackers in this movement actually do specialize in a single tool or technique across many events. Great example: Shariq Hashme (the first person mentioned in the article) has a long, successful track record of making amazing Oculus Rift and constructed hardware hacks. So while the projects themselves might be different, the students do often demonstrate that commitment to mastery that you're looking for.
Re: The Hackathon Fast Track: From Campus to Silicon Valley
#10We have company sponsored hackathons for internal projects. At first I dug it, but beginning to think this mainly serves to squeeze a weekend of work out of devs and to get something done fast, sometimes fast != good/sustainable/performant/well tested. But hey, free tshirt and unlimited diet coke, so that is something :-/
Company run hackathons != student hackathons. http://theycallmeswift.com/2013/10/25/dont-throw-that-hackat...