

Hacker School Winter 2013 Applications are Open - sunahsuh
https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/10-winter-2013-applications-open

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j2labs
I was in Hacker School's first batch, batch[0]. It was awesome. I was brought
into the idea when my friend Dave Albert reached out to me. I met Dave through
the hacker culture in NYC.

There was 6 of us in a small room, all working on things and talking about
what inspired us. I had some things I was working on at home and loved the
idea of working on them with a bunch of other hackers around. I don't
personally like coworking spaces, but I thought the term "school" would mean
something quite different, something more compatible with my goal of writing a
bunch of open source.

Everyone could use their time however they wanted. The basic premise was to
see what happens when you put a bunch of people, who love programming, in a
room together. Do they sit there? Do they pull out SICP and get to work? What
happens?

I used my time there to work on building Brubeck and I also built the demo
projects most people use to learn Brubeck. I learned a ton just discussing the
system with the other people there, but I learned the most when I would just
listen to what other folks were thinking about. Everyone ended up building a
huge amount of stuff and we improved each other's work by sharing it, picking
it apart, etc.

We come to HN for a particular reason. We're looking for like-minded folks.
The word "Hacker" is significant. It is a beacon for us. Hacker School knows
this and takes on the challenge of being another beacon, and they do it well.

I have been a reader of PG's essays for 9 or so years and found the culture of
Hacker School to reflect the same ideas. They understand the value of doing
things simply because it would be neat. They know what it's like to be let
down by a typical education experience. Hacker School is what they're doing
about it.

I wholeheartedly recommend anyone with a passion for learning and technology
to consider applying. What you learn is up to you and your passions, but
Hacker School is the environment you've been looking to lose yourself in.
That's why it exists!

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avolcano
It's a bummer that they don't do the interviews/final answers until after the
first couple weeks of January.

I'd love to take a semester off and do this, but since there's no guarantee
I'd get into Hacker School, I would want to have my usual classes to fall back
on, and the payment for that is due the first week of January. If I did get
into Hacker School, I'd rather not drop the university classes I'll already
have paid for.

Maybe this summer the timing will work out better. I'm sure I could learn more
in three months there than I ever would here :I

~~~
nicholasjbs
(Hacker School cofounder here)

Please apply anyway, and include a note that you need an early admissions
decision :) We'll do our best to get you a final answer before the first week
of January (and if it turns out we can't, we'll let you know before then,
too).

~~~
avolcano
Ah, great! Thanks for letting me know. I went ahead and sent in my application
a few minutes ago :)

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colinmarc
Alum from the third batch here. In the hopes that I can convince someone else
to apply, my story:

I applied to hacker school, on a whim, while I was working on a php app at an
advertising company in Boston. I didn't think I would get in, and I hadn't
made any plans to support spending three months in NY. When I got in, I
decided to drop everything, and left a month later on the dot. It may have
been the best decision of my life to date.

Going in, I was a programmer, but I wasn't very good. Hacker school was so
transformative, so incredibly valuable that three months later I was accepting
an offer at Stripe, where I am now.

The strange thing is - the value doesn't come from lectures, or workshops, or
anything like that. Hacker school is valuable because it gives you the space
to grow into your full potential on your own. Just having three months where I
could dabble and play in the company of similarly-minded people was the best
thing for me, and it's hard to overstate how much I learned.

Do it! Apply! I don't know of a better way to spend three months.

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kami8845
I love Hacker School. It significantly changed the trajectory of my life. I
barely didn't go, but in the end I did and as a result met some of the
smartest people that were incredibly passionate about technology. Try and
apply - they're incredibly warm, open people and a pleasure to talk to in any
case.

~~~
cheapsteak
Hi there, this is going to be off topic but I couldn't find if there was a way
to message people on here

The rewindhn.com that front-paged a while back is showing this page:

    
    
        uWSGI Error
    
        Python application not found
    

is this a temporary thing or is the site shut down?

does this have anything to do with the provider? (I recall you were using
hetzner)

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vclortho
I'm seriously considering applying, but I'd have to leave a full time job in
order to do so. What kind of job placement rate is there post"grad"? Average
salary?

At my current position I'm being paid well but I don't feel like I'm improving
at all as a programmer. This would be a huge risk for me, but I feel like I'd
be better prepared for the future.

Any alums leave a job to go to hacker school? What was your experience like?

~~~
lfranchi
I pretty much left my programming job to come to HS. As i'm in the current
batch, i'm entering the nob market around now. While I don't know about
average salary or job placement rates, if you are a professional programmer
before hacker school you'll only be a much better professional programmer
after hacker school, and that means it won't be too difficult to get a job.

But Hacker School is not a job placement program. It is a place for people who
love programming to come to become better at their craft. That this results in
increase job opportunities afterwards is often a beneficial side effect, but
not the primary motivator for people to come here.

------
danenania
I love the idea of HackerSchool and would love to take part at some point in
my life. The only thing that gives me pause is that I've heard the application
process heavily emphasizes and selects based on github code and open source
contributions vs. other accomplishments. Can anyone verify if this is or isn't
the case?

Personally, I love oss and have always planned to get more involved. That's
one of the primary reasons I'm interested in trying HackerSchool. But so far
in my hacker career I've focused much more on achieving financial stability
and freedom, which means that while I've produced a lot of interesting code
across many domains and studied a decent variety of languages and
technologies, the majority of my work has either been for pay or on personal
projects that have (so far unsuccessfully) been aimed at least to some extent
at turning a profit.

Just wondering if there would be a place for someone like me at HackerSchool,
or if I'd have to spend some time beefing up my github first to be considered.

~~~
abecedarius
Current student here. There's quite an even mix of backgrounds: some people
came in with very little up on github, some with lots. Give it a whack -- I
see no reason you'd make a poor candidate, or hurt your chances for the future
by applying now.

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Mgccl
I know who would be perfect for this, except she is still in college so she
would need to drop a semester to do this instead.

Do you have any pitch concerning this?

I assume the summer one doesn't conflict with college, but at those times
people usually go for internships.

~~~
lfranchi
Disclaimer: I am in the current batch.

I don't know if there is a 'pitch' concerning pausing college for a semester.
I think the same thing applies as for those people (like me) who quit their
programming jobs to come to hacker school:

I've learned more in the last 2 months than I have in the last year at my job.
Pair programming with people who are better than you in a specific skill is an
incredible way to learn. If you love programming and want to become a better
programmer by spending time doing what you love with other people who are
driven by the same passions, come to hacker school. You have found your space.

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jakozaur
I like this idea so much. Any plans to scale up the Hacker School? In
particular, it would be awesome if there was more Hacker Schools in different
locations.

~~~
nicholasjbs
Thanks!

We might expand someday, but we're still far from perfect with only one
location, and we want to stay focused on making Hacker School in New York the
best it can be before expanding to more locations.

In the meantime, we've had good success with people moving to New York for
Hacker School. About 20% of our past two batches have come from outside the
US, and the majority of our last couple batches moved to New York for the
batch.

~~~
barry-cotter
Hi, how much trouble have non-US people had getting (US) jobs afterwards? I
know you support yourselves by acting as recruiters and it seems likely that
it would be really hard for people without permanent residence to get visas.

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codegeek
Is Hacker school in some way affiliated/linked to YC ? The homepage design
looks very close to ycombinator's.

~~~
nicholasjbs
We were YC S10, and yes, we copied YC's site design significantly (we
acknowledge this on our FAQ: <https://www.hackerschool.com/faq>).

~~~
codegeek
ok thx.

------
Sean-Der
If you are on the edge about applying, I heavily encourage you to apply!

HackerSchool changed my life drastically on multiple levels. The
intellectually challenging atmosphere made me a better person all around, not
just programming wise.

------
Irregardless
What level of programming knowledge do you prefer incoming students to have? I
see a couple testimonials that mention people new to programming, but your
code requests and FAQ lead me to believe that's a rare exception nowadays...

~~~
dillonforrest
Hey there, I did Hacker School this past summer. I was one of the most
beginner-level programmers in the beginning. I never opened my terminal, never
heard of functional programming, and didn't even know how html and css worked.
I was a noob. The only things I could do were solve project euler math
problems, which was enough to know I loved programming and wanted to commit to
improving. Despite my initial skill level, I found a full-time job shortly
afterward as a developer.

TLDR: if you can code fizzbuzz and know you love programming, you're good
enough to apply. :)

~~~
ahoy
Can you share a bit of information about what the application/interview
process was like? I'm sort of in the same position, and I'm very interested in
applying for summer or winter 13.

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rodly
I'm currently a CS student and kind of like the idea of doing Hacker School
for Summer 2013 or 2014, but could never afford the living expenses. Why do
you only do scholarships for Women?

~~~
antonID
I was wondering the same thing. I don't see why not being a woman should
disqualify you from financial aid.

~~~
zemo
(batch[1] alum, male)

it's about promoting the program for females, to help balance the gender
divide in programming. In my batch, there was no scholarship yet, and we had
no females. Same for batch[0]. batch[1] didn't have the scholarships and they
had just one female. Since starting the scholarships, the program has been
just under half female, which has been extremely beneficial to hackerschool
culture.

The scholarships do help fix the gender divide, and honestly, I think that's
very important, for both females AND males. I don't think it's acknowledged
widely enough the relationship between gender diversity and happiness in a
working environment. I would be very, very surprised if scholarly research
didn't reveal that all-male or mostly-male workplaces lead to unhappy males.
As a CE undergrad, I had almost no female classmates. A few years out of
graduation, I've come to the conclusion that having no females in my program
contributed to the severe depression that I experienced as an undergrad. Part
of fixing that is making it clear that we want females to be a part of our
community, and part of it is actually making sure that can happen. The
scholarships are a good thing, even for the guys that don't qualify. As an
alum, I support the scholarships for female applicants, and can testify to the
positive impact they've had on our little community.

~~~
jlees
It's not just about happiness, but also productivity, diversity of thought,
ideas and working styles, having a well-rounded team, and all that jazz.
Though I'm sure happiness comes into it, too.

I'm female, and half the reason I'm tempted to apply is the scholarship. I
find that a little disquieting, and I can't quite put my finger on why.
Unfortunately, the scholarship is not enough for me to give up my (non-
programming, but in technology) day job and move across the country, so it's
something of a moot point. I'd love to do Hacker School, it's definitely a
direction I'd really benefit from growing in, but the sort of person to whom
the scholarship makes a substantial difference in applying... let's just say
not every woman falls into that category.

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sherbondy
Tiny suggestion that may not be pragmatic: since you folks advocate for Open
Source Software, it'd be nice if the default tool for conducting interviews
didn't rely on a closed VOIP protocol (Skype).

Maybe consider adding an option for SIP addresses on the next round of
applications?

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evoxed
Are you guys remaining at Etsy for the time being or is it moving?

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julien_c
I'd be interested in a similar program for Design – is there such a thing?

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ramblerman
What's the average age?

~~~
nicholasjbs
We don't collect this data, but I think our range has been late-teens to late
40s, with most students in their 20s or 30s.

