
My Second Hackathon Changed My Life - jonmarkgo
http://news.mlh.io/second-hackathon-changed-my-life-02-12-2015
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jzone3
Loved this story. I can completely sympathize. I had been programming in
school and for fun a little before my first hackathon, however I had not yet
made any "real" apps. I attended my first hackathon a few years ago (pretty
sure Jon was there). Like Jon, I joined a team of people with much more
experienced than myself. They taught me a lot, helped me get started, and got
me hooked on hackathons. After this hackathon, I started learning about web
development, meeting others in the community, and of course attending more
hackathons.

If you are at all interested in programming or learning how to program, I
encourage you to attend a hackathon. Check out some great ones here:
[http://mlh.io/events/](http://mlh.io/events/)

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kurtalee
An inspiring read - I know of so many people that got dragged to their first
hackathon thanks to persistent friends, myself included!

Every single hackathon I've been to since have inspired me in one way or
another - be it trying out the latest tech, the buzz from working on a hack
over a short period of time, or just meeting & sharing the weekend with super
awesome people!

The hacker ethos is extremely transferrable as well, it's a mindset I promote
a lot when I teach Computing to my secondary school students in the UK. It's
all about getting the learners to take control of their own education & be as
creative as they want about it.

Proud to have MLH at the forefront of revolutionising how students learn,
build and share ideas around technology. Very excited to be part of this
growing global community and cannot wait to see what's to come!

If you're in the EU, I would highly recommend checking out these upcoming
hackathons (drag a friend along too!): [http://mlh.io/eu/](http://mlh.io/eu/)

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ranman
Hackathons are a lot of fun and I enjoy attending them. I'd love to see them
get more diverse. MLH has been a great organization to work with so far.

One of my favorite things about Hackathons is that no matter where you are in
the world you meet people who are interested in the same things. They're not
just interested though, they're capable.

The only other thing I'd love to see from hackathons is a little more focus on
health of the participants.

~~~
theyCallMeSwift
> The only other thing I'd love to see from hackathons is a little more focus
> on health of the participants.

Me too. Our most recent participant survey said that the most important three
things to hackers were:

1\. Fast Internet 2\. Good Food 3\. Healthy Food (different than good food
apparently)

~~~
Fradow
I would add Sleep to the list. I would be interested to know how it was ranked
in your survey.

Most people at hackathons don't acknowledge that they need to sleep, which is
bad for both their health and their productivity.

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simplyluke
I've had a couple of meals with Jon & Swift (founders of MLH) and can speak to
their dedication to the hackathon community. They're really trying to
encourage experiences like these for students around the country.

Hackathons are the reason I got involved in the larger tech/startup community,
an indirect (but crucial) reason I have a job right now, and have really come
to be a very important culture for me. The work of MLH and Jon have made a
large part of that possible.

For those curious about the history of hackathons, Jon has a really great talk
that he gave at HackCon last year about the history of hackathons:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6VPAe9CKU&index=1&list=PLP...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6VPAe9CKU&index=1&list=PLPDgudJ_VDUdqhQldG7SqXGxaj-
FiLGmP)

~~~
frankdenbow
Agreed, great guys leading the charge for the community.

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MarcScott
I took a bunch of high-school students to the MLH Launch hack in London and
they had an amazing time, and were really inspired by everything that was
going on around them.

Unfortunately although MLH were very supportive of under 18s attending the
hackathons, the venues weren't so accomodating, and it doesn't look like were
going to get to go to another one.

It would be nice to see more under 18 hackathons being organised to help
inspire and engage teenagers. We have YRS in the UK and it's fantastic, but it
only comes around once a year.

~~~
iancarroll
Both MHacks and PennApps accept high school students. Sadly, the venues are
usually universities with strict policies but there are still many that allow
<18, like CodeDay events.

~~~
jmgrosen
Sadly, neither are on the west coast!

~~~
simplyluke
Both provide travel reimbursements and there are tons of HS-friendly
hackathons on the west coast. HSHacks, HackGenY, LAHacks (IIRC they were cool
with <18). Definitely could use more though.

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HashHishBang
Interesting, I'm glad to see people have positive experiences with Hackathons
despite my own being horribly toxic. The reasoning given in the article is
actually the impetus behind my decision to ditch hackathons (and later the
"development" community in favor of QA Automation).

The 'competition' portion of a hackathon usually messes me up in both approach
to the work and the desired end goal. Whereas it seems to be a major portion
of the attraction for the blog author and a lot of people in this thread.

Perhaps it is a matter of teammates that I have participated with thus far,
but trying to hack together a minimum-passable-product (note: not even viable
but ~passable~) stuck me as an utter waste.

~~~
jonmarkgo
If you go into the event hoping to build something productive or that has
longevity, it will likely feel like a waste. But that's really not the point
of hackathons, and seems to be a major factor that people take issue with.
Especially for students/new programmers, the goal is to tinker with
technology, have fun, and discover like-minded collaborators in a risk-free
environment.

You might be thinking - hey! a competition isn't risk-free - but really,
compared to a work or academic environment there is far less risk involved
with building something ambitious or using a technology you are completely
unfamiliar with. The best hackathons don't focus on the competitive element,
but instead create a system where people are rewarded for ambitious but not
perfectly polished work. I wrote another blog post about that here:
[http://news.mlh.io/are-hackathon-prizes-the-worst-thing-
sinc...](http://news.mlh.io/are-hackathon-prizes-the-worst-thing-since-moldy-
sliced-bread-04-18-2014)

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syphen
I could not agree more with everything that you talk about in this post.
StartupBus was my first real hackathon and it definitely changed my life.

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thelonelygod
I love reading stories like these. I hope more people in the community share
first (or second) hackathon stories.

~~~
theyCallMeSwift
+1. If you have a story to share, email us at hi@mlh.io. We'd love to share it
with our community!

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hadardor
Really enlightening post - gotta love what's been going on with the hackathon
community over the past couple years!

~~~
kandalf
The student hackathon movement has definitely evolved super quickly in the
last five years (as Swift says, 5 -> 150, or more than 100% growth year over
year). I'd be curious to hear more stats about how hackathons in general have
grown in the same time period.

