

Apply to the Winter 2014 Batch of Hacker School - luu
https://www.hackerschool.com/apply?2014

======
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.

~~~
j2labs
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](https://www.hackerschool.com/manual)

~~~
throwmeawayii
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.

------
Jayschwa
Hacker School is a great thing to do during a sabbatical or career break. I
got pretty burned out on my previous job (of 6 years) in the Midwest. I was
also a bit lonely since there wasn't much of a tech community in the area. I
came out to New York for the Winter 2013 batch, and it was exactly the kick in
the pants I needed. By the end of the batch, I had renewed vigor, job
prospects, and a bunch of new friends. I ended up moving permanently to NYC
for a new job (which Hacker School facilitated).

The Hacker School experience and community are fantastic. I'd highly recommend
it to any other software engineers having a quarter-life crisis ;-)

~~~
jrs99
you were programming for 6 years before hacker school?

~~~
StefanKarpinski
Hacker School has a really broad range of programming experience and
knowledge. It's definitely not just for beginning programmers, although there
are many who have been programming for a year or less. The common denominator
is enthusiasm for programming and becoming better programmers. The idea behind
the residents program [1] was to make sure that no matter your level as a
Hacker Schooler, there would always be someone you can go to and bounce hard
problems off of.

[1]
[https://www.hackerschool.com/residents](https://www.hackerschool.com/residents)

------
wdaher
You should definitely apply.

Hacker School has created a really productive space for people (of a variety
of skill levels) interested in programming, and I think two things have made
that the case:

#1 is definitely that interesting people apply (which is why you need to!)

#2 is that it's in really good hands: in all my interactions with the founders
and residents, I've consistently been impressed -- they're smart, they're
thoughtful, and they're passionate about the mission.

(Our startup has hired two Hacker Schoolers so far.)

------
haon99
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?

~~~
nicholasjbs
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 by other companies, not Hacker School
(the most recent sponsors are Dropbox, Etsy, Jane Street, Tapad, and Tumblr:
[https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/26-dropbox-etsy-jane-
stree...](https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/26-dropbox-etsy-jane-street-tapad-
tumblr-support-female-programmers)).

~~~
omilk
> "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?

~~~
nicholasjbs
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.

~~~
shykes
I really like this approach to the gender imbalance problem: grow the pool,
don't lower the bar. I think this is the way to go, and I hope that more tech
organizations will think of it this way.

------
dethstar
I have a question: is it just impossible to get any kind of monetary help
(scholarship) for the living expenses? as someone who does not live in the
U.S. My application would depend on this, and I would not like to give them
more applications to read if there's no chance of that.

P.S I read the FAQ and I am not a women, that's why I'm asking.

Edit: "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." So I guess that's a no, in case someone else is wondering, that was
answered by nicholasjbs.

------
nilkn
For those who've attended this school or are otherwise just familiar enough to
answer this question, what's the expected total cost of living over the course
of the program? Is it common for students to find shared living arrangements
to cut down on NYC rents?

~~~
nicholasjbs
Most Hacker Schoolers find shared living arrangements (i.e., they usually
sublet a room in an apartment).

The total cost depends on your circumstances (e.g., if you have student loans,
dependents, etc), but if you're only supporting yourself 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).

------
rhgraysonii
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 with you guys and it would be a dream
of mine to take such a good chunk of time and dedicate it to open source work
with other like minded hackers who seem to be a brilliant bunch.

~~~
Jayschwa
> 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 between.

You might as well apply. If you get turned down, it's not the end of the world
and you can try again for the next batch. I know of people who were turned
down twice and got in on their third try.

~~~
rhgraysonii
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.

------
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).

~~~
rjbond3rd
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.

~~~
MWil
That's a good idea, haven't attempted an API yet (and it would be one of the
next steps for the project anyway)

------
WasimBhai
Hacker School guys, if you are here, are you open to foreign candidates? I am
from Pakistan and would absolutely love to join if selected.

~~~
omni
Yes! 29% of the current batch is from outside the US.
[https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/25-who-comes-to-hacker-
sch...](https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/25-who-comes-to-hacker-school)

------
ashray
Applied! Hoping to see what you guys think and even if I don't get selected
some detailed feedback would be great!

------
newhere
If you want to get accepted: include the word Julia somewhere in the
application.

You're welcome.

------
drakethes
Are there any other initiatives like this elsewhere in the world? As much as
I'd like to commute over from the UK, I think the petrol costs might make it
unfeasible.

~~~
umami
There's Hacker Retreat[1] in Berlin, which is inspired by Hacker School.

[1] [http://hackerretreat.com/](http://hackerretreat.com/)

edit: previous discussion on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6450472](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6450472)

