
Hacker School announces fall applications and residencies - nicholasjbs
https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/4-fall-2012-applications-open
======
xiaoma
For women who get into this program, great! You're set and will probably have
an easy time finding work afterwards!

When recently moved back to the US with a basic programming foundation, I
really wanted to get into this sort of school. I moved back with the primary
motivation of becoming a top notch programmer. As a guy with my background,
these kinds of programs aren't easy to get into! In general they all have a
pretty strong desire to invite more women, and there are an awful lot of guys
that want the training.

Without the option of this kind of top-notch program or others like it, I
joined the local ruby meetup group and kept an eye out for any kinds of free
instruction... and found that all were railsbridge (women only unless you're
invited by a female participant). If you're already at a level where you can
build some things, there are a lot more options like going to hack night and
asking for feedback on what you've already built, but there's not much if
you're not to that point yet.

If anybody reading this now is in the situation I was a couple of months ago,
I strongly recommend the Coursera SaaS course through Berkeley. Obviously it
doesn't compare to scholarships and in-person teaching, but there are free
lectures, automated program graders, forums with active participants, study
groups, and even human feeback on the quizzes. It's got pretty much all of the
positives of Open Courseware, Code School (also great) and more videos rolled
into one. It's open to people anywhere in the world, it's subtitled in several
languages and everything except the optional textbook is free.

I'm not trying to hijack the thread-- this is a genuine attempt to help others
who are in the same boat I was in until I found this.

<https://www.coursera.org/course/saas>

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wyclif
Apparently the only way you can qualify for financial assistance is to be a
woman. While I think that's great, and I understand why they are doing it that
way (we really do need more women in programming), it leaves some men who
validly need a hand up out in the cold.

~~~
nicholasjbs
We agree -- we'd love to be able to provide financial support to _everyone_ we
accept to Hacker School. It's another "what if" we've asked ourselves. We're
not there yet, but we might get there someday.

~~~
pleasebehonest
It's disgusting.

You ignore underprivileged male hackers because too many _other_ hackers are
male? How is that fair?

 _I'm sorry, but we aren't going to help you. Why? You have the wrong organ
between your legs. Next!_

Are you sure what you're doing is even legal? What do you do about
trans/intersex applicants, or do they not matter to you?

~~~
vitno
your kidding, right? It certainly is legal, colleges practice this all the
time!

They give large grants to women, not because they are better, but because they
are attempting to equalize the gender ratio.

The money is an extra. They won't accept you if you don't think you belong
there. You are not entitled to any money. They are a private enterprise who
are entitled to attempt to equalize the gender ratio... through whatever means
they chose.

~~~
gojomo
Whether gender-specific scholarships are legal is a question for lawyers and
courts.

But regarding "equalizing the gender ratio", the gender balance for college
undergraduates in the USA swung far in favor of women 10 or more years ago.
Today, most colleges that want to 'equalize the gender ratio' would have to
offer male-only scholarships.

~~~
Jach
You're aggregating up over all the possible degrees at all US colleges, in
which case you're right, but come on. You know that in departments like
computer science and pure math and various engineering disciplines and even
physics the gender ratio is still heavily in favor of men. That's what's being
addressed by scholarships. At many US colleges the female-only scholarships
are typically conditional on entering one of the degrees with a predominantly
male population and completing it.

~~~
gojomo
So would male-only scholarships be appropriate in all the other female-
dominated majors? And, because of the overall undergraduate imbalance,
offering more male-only scholarships than female-only scholarships when netted
over all fields? Simply to achieve gender balance, of course.

~~~
Jach
Sure, if achieving gender balance is desired. Racial balance also seems to be
desired by most places, leading to implicit and explicit benefits for
different races as well as genders. Just don't expect to see too many male-
only scholarships. Few people seem to be concerned over the gender imbalance
in, say for rhetorical purposes, English literature. Why do we want a greater
balance in CS but not Eng. Lit? Regardless of why, the fact remains that we
do, and thus we'll see tricks like scholarships trying to effect that change.
Perhaps it would be better if it was all based on intellectual merit, but if
you argue for that earnestly you'll be called any of a sexist/racist/elitist
or something else. If that's really the path forward it will be a long time
before we get on it.

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Jun8
"The result? Twenty three of the 51 students in our current batch are female,
and Hacker School is much better for it."

Though I applaud HS's initiative and Etsy's sponsorship, it would've been nice
to outline why HS is "much better" now that half the students are female.

~~~
nicholasjbs
I started writing about the benefits (and challenges) of having many more
women in the batch (while simultaneously growing by 2.5x), but I felt the post
was already way too long.

I hope to write a separate post on the subject before too long (maybe in
September, after this batch ends and I have a bit more time).

~~~
wavesounds
NPR recently had a great report[1] on women in the sciences they said "When
women were reminded — even subtly — of the stereotype that men were better
than women at math, the performance of women in math tests measurably
declined" so one might think that this living expense would reinforce that
stereotype, however they concluded that "In order to boost the numbers of
women who choose to go into those fields, you have to boost the number of
women who are in those fields." Which is exactly what this stipend will do and
hopefully that positive will out way any perceived negative. I think its a
great experiment and you might want to reach out to the researchers in this
report to see if they would be interested in what you're doing.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-
wh...](http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-why-women-
quit-science-jobs)

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ianstallings
But how can you be a real hacker when you haven't been steeled by the flames
of IRC and newsgroups? Maybe you should do some sessions where the experts
call you a noob in very eloquent ways.

Seriously though, I'm glad this happened. I'm glad programming is being taken
seriously as a craft and not ending up a side note of the curriculum. Keep us
informed!

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maryrosecook
I'm a student in the current batch of Hacker School. I wrote a testimonial
that is not up on the internet, yet, so I thought I'd reproduce it here. Hope
you guys find it helpful.

tl;dr: go.

There are eight elements of Hacker School.

First, it is unusually supportive and safe. You can ask a question to clarify
something you feel you ought to know, because you will get a gentle,
illuminating answer. You can write a piece of code that you worry is shitty,
then shape it into something beautiful with a fellow Hacker Schooler. You are
isolated from all the people whose opinion might matter to you: your friends,
your family, potential employers, the internet. In short, there are no
negative consequences to showing your weaknesses.

Second, it is structured. If you feel awkward in social situations, you find
that you always have a place. When you program on Hacker School days, there is
always a desk to sit at. At the social gatherings, you discover that everyone
at Hacker School is kind and inclusive. No one is ever left standing on their
own.

Third, Hacker School is an uncontrollable situation. You are guided towards
the things that it is important for you to work on. This invisible hand is the
aggregate of the projects that other people are working on, the fellow
students who walk up and offer to work with you on your project, the subjects
covered in the Hacker School library, the languages your fellow students
discuss at lunch, the juicy problem your deskmates are wrestling with, and the
gentle guidance of the faculty. This invisible hand plainly shows you what you
have been avoiding learning, what you thought was too hard, what you didn't
know you needed to know, what you didn't know interested you.

Fourth, it is a place where programming is the most important thing in the
world. Imagine Florence in the fifteenth century, except, instead of painting,
everyone is inventing how to program, and instead of being surrounded by
Donatello and Ghiberti and Botticelli and Raphael, you are working with the
startlingly sharp programmers who no one has heard of, yet. The fact that it
is socially acceptable to think about programming and talk about programming
and work on programming means that programming is uppermost in your mind.
Which means that you get better at it very fast. (This element was copped from
Paul Graham's essay on aesthetic taste: paulgraham.com/taste.html)

Fifth, there are almost no constraints on what you work on. Your project
doesn't have to make money, doesn't have to build your portfolio of open
source code, doesn't have to be useful, doesn't have to appeal to some
particular community, doesn't have to be cool, doesn't have result in
something commensurate with the effort you put in. There is one constraint:
work at the edge of your programming capabilities. Which is to say: work on
something that makes you a better programmer.

Sixth, there are people who are better than you and people who are worse than
you. Even if you are the most inexperienced programmer in the whole of Hacker
School, you certainly know more than others about a particular operating
system. Even if you are the most experienced programmer, you certainly know
less than others about a particular language.

Seventh, you get to talk to and work with people who have truly brilliant
minds. Some are fellow students at Hacker School. Some are drafted in as
speakers or co-hackers. All are your peers.

Eighth, and most importantly, Hacker School is an expression of the faculty:
Sonali, Nick, Dave, Alan and Tom. They are the people you'd want teaching you
because they explain things clearly and they know a lot. They are the people
you'd want to be friends with because they are nurturing and fun and funny.
They are the people you'd want to have with you if you got into trouble
because they would impose themselves on the situation and start fixing it. In
short, they examine their environment and make it better.

And:

Having David Nolen explain the ClojureScript compiler was one of the
intellectual highlights of my life.

The hours at Hacker School feel precious.

This is the fastest period of learning in my life.

I'm coming back.

------
dev46nyc
What's the avg age of the participants? Do you find any interest from 40+ year
old developers applying in order to refresh their skills?

~~~
nicholasjbs
We're open to and welcome programmers of all ages. We don't ask for age or
keep stats on this, so we don't know for sure. Anecdotally, most of our
students are in their 20s and 30s, but we've had some in their late teens and
a couple in their 40s.

~~~
Tichy
I think 50% of attendees being in their 40s would be a desirable goal...

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jconnolly
Love the residency idea. Good luck processing the next batch guys.

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suyash
Sucks...that you're in East coast..we need to open a better hacker school in
SF Bay Area

~~~
T_S_
If anybody would like to run something like this at Hacker Dojo in Mtn. View,
let's discuss.

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klaut
Do the applicants have to be Usa citizens? Can somebody from Europe apply as
well?

~~~
vitno
yea! There are many people in the current batch from Europe.

