

The Path to Hacker School - nicholasjbs
http://unschooled.org/2012/06/the-path-to-hacker-school/

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richardburton
What a great story. You kept trying out different models until you found
something awesome. I have to say when I ran my last company I _hated_ picking
up the phone only to hear some "IT recruitment expert" who has never fired up
terminal droning on. Conversely, I would _love_ to call you guys up when I
start another company. Good luck!

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davidbalbert
Thanks for the kind words Richard!

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rabc
Great story, great idea, great plan.

Since it's only 3 weeks, I don't think you Hacker School has too much problem
accepting foreign students. But it will be a problem for startups trying to
hire? Or they're OK aout trying a foreign employee?

A suggestion: Hacker School don't provide certification or grading, but you
could set a page with the names of the students for future reference.

I'm really thinking about taking a 3-week vacations and try Hacker School
after I finish my Master of Science degree. Even if it's just to learn more :)

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nicholasjbs
Thanks, rabc!

 _Since it's only 3 weeks, I don't think you Hacker School has too much
problem accepting foreign students._

The program's actually three months, not three weeks. That's still short
enough for tourist visas (I think, but obviously IANAL).

The companies we work with are split on visas; in general, the larger the
company the easier it is for them to do, since they can plan farther in the
future (it can take months or more for visas to come through). The other issue
is that I don't think you're allowed to seek employment while you're visiting
the country and then get sponsorship; you're supposed to get sponsorship
before you come (again, IANAL).

Feel free to email me (nick at hackerschool.com) if you have other questions.
We'd love to find a way to make Hacker School more accessible for people
outside the US. The primary reason to do Hacker School is to become a better
programmer, so I think it's worth it even if the US's crazy immigration policy
makes staying after the batch a pain.

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nandemo
Nick,

first, congrats for the Hacker School. I think it's an awesome idea.

I would not assume going for a job interview or talking to a prospective
employer necessarily constitutes "seeking employment". See this for instance:

<http://visaforimmigration.com/>

> _USCIS will usually allow a non-immigrant to enter the US to attend a
> specific pre-arranged job interview in visitor status._

The implication is that you go for the interview on-site, but do not attempt
to actually work; you first have to back to your country then go through the
normal H1-B (or other such visa) process.

Of course that's not directly applicable to people holding visitor status that
want to look for jobs after attending Hacker School. Attending the School
might not be allowed in the first place.

If you're getting a lot of non-US candidates (either for Hacker School or
directly to Hackruiter), I think it would be a good idea to consult an
immigration lawyer.

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lachyg
Bottom of 1st page: <http://travel.state.gov/pdf/BusinessVisa.pdf>

Training is acceptable on the VWP.

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nandemo
Thanks! Good to know. I'd still check with a lawyer, though, because of this:

> _Participating in a training program that is not designed primarily to
> provide employment._

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mnemosyne51
Is it possible to attend this on a B1/B2 visa ? I have been looking for a
course like this all my life. I am not particularly interested in a job offer
at the end (although wouldn't mind if something interesting comes up) but I
just want to attend to improve my skills.

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davidbalbert
We don't sponsor visas or have any type of accreditation, but if you can
figure out how to be in NYC for 3 months, you're more than welcome to apply.

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ryanfitz
What about having your students develop and launch a mock startup? Building
small apps and going over books is great, but I think students can learn a lot
more real world dev by actually doing it. You can still emphasize code
quality, agile practices, working together on a team, etc. Put up everything
on github and as they develop the startup make sure they are contributing back
to whatever open source software they are using.

Im assuming most of your students are interested in working for startups so
giving them a mock startup experience would be a plus for them and also for
the startups they eventually work for.

~~~
zemo
I was in batch[1] and worked on the back end of a startup simultaneously, but
not while on HS time. Having had the experience, I wouldn't recommend HS if
you're more interested in startups than you are in programming. The goals are
completely different. The measure of a startup's success can be directly
observed, but you can't simply observe an overwhelming sense of curiosity or
the triumphal sense of discovery. The reason I'm interested in startups is
that it's a way to spend all of your time creating things that enrich other
people's lives, which is exactly what we try to do at HS.

Then you have the concept of ownership and monetary gain, but nobody really
_owns_ HS projects, they just happen. There are no contracts or points, there
is only the joy of programming. When you naturally put people together that
are all working to better themselves in the same way, they wind up
cooperating. It's much easier to cooperate on something that's already shared.

Now that's not to say that you can't do anything tangentially related to your
startup while you are working on HS. I wrote and open-sourced a library that
was tangentially related to my startup, but I did it as a learning experience;
it wasn't mission-critical, it just scratched an itch. I wound up not using
the project on my startup because it contacted an API that changed, which
crushed my curiosity and caused me to stop working on it, but looming in the
back of my head, it gave me some inspiration for the curiosity that HS
satisfies.

In hindsight, I wish I had never written that library. Yes I learned from it,
but my time would probably have been better spent reading _Erlang and OTP in
Action_.

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ryanfitz
Me saying "mock startup" was probably a bad term to use, plus I'm probably
missing the use case of hacker school. What I really meant was to work on
something larger scale as a team. For an example make a clone of hn or reddit,
do a web app and mobile, maybe even build multiple versions in different
languages.

From Dave and Nick's reply it sounds like they tried something along those
lines, but learned that people got a lot more value out of working on a number
of various smaller sized projects, which is great.

~~~
zemo
_clone of hn or reddit_

ah ok, I understand. Yes, that's totally something we would do. Cloning,
rewriting in a new language, or forking would be appropriate. It wouldn't make
much sense to clone Reddit because it's already open source, but forking it
and modifying it would be very appropriate.

We wrote four chat servers reminiscent of chat.nodejs.org in batch[1]; one
with Brubeck (python), one with Chicago Boss (erlang), one with node.js, and
then the Brubeck chat program was rewritten to work inside of a Spotify App,
so yes we clone existing projects. But typically with a project like that,
there's a lot of cool stuff in the beginning and you eschew some more tedious
aspects that you would need for a real-world project, like, say... IE
compatibility. Once you're housekeeping and your new work doesn't teach you
much and doesn't give you cool things to show the rest of the group, it gets
really boring really fast, and the environment naturally encourages you to do
something more dynamic.

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botj
Why all the hate against CS education? It's a tough balance between theory and
vocation...but I think it's extremely short-sighted to think vocation should
rule all.

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davidbalbert
It's not necessarily vocation. It's just building things. Craft is the word I
use in my head. I enjoy CS a lot, but I primarily want to be a better
craftsman. CS is a useful tool for me to get better at my craft, but my
primary interest is in being good at building things.

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cglee
Wow, why do I keep butting into your projects :) (I co-founded Active
Interview and Railstutors.com)

