How I got my Dream Job by C.K.

I’ve been struggling with some tough questions since I’ve arrived in California at my dream job in R&D. Why me? What got me here? Hard work? Intelligence? Luck? Surely a combination of the three. I think the answer is more obvious.

Hackathons.

My job consists of identifying hard problems, proposing clever solutions, and fully implementing or prototyping new technologies for them. How did I learn that? Did I get that skill set from classes? I go to a great school, but no. I use the knowledge for thinking, but those skills came directly from -doing-. The secret sauce of our community is telling a young student, “you can build anything.” Seriously. You, anyone reading this, can build the next Facebook. You can build an app I use every day, or build software to communicate with sattelites, or just a silly app that makes a fart noise when someone pulls your finger. There’s absolute liberation in discovering that you can build anything you want.

See a problem? Devise a solution and hack away.

Have a cool idea?

Build it.

Do you have something to share about how hackathons have helped you? Share it to us at hello@whatthehack.io.

For more updates about hackathons and hacking in general, visit us at http://whatthehack.io.