My experience with Hackathons as a High Schooler
The dawn of my junior year in high school marked a transformative chapter in my life — the discovery of hackathons.
I attended my very first hackathon during this school year. I don’t remember how stumbled on this hackathon but I remember feeling anxious since I did not know what to expect. The environment, the people, and the ideas (maybe the food and stickers) made me fall in love with hackathons.
I remember creating my very first web app- an Amazon price tracker. Even though I did not win any awards, I remember the joy when my app (called Sale Stalker) started working. The process wasn’t without its share of trials — debugging. The begging for more time to create presentations and practice scripts. Laughter-infused discussions, and even playful debates on the supremacy of school mascots while blasting music from the shared Spotify playlist filled the day.
This was also the first time I introduced the realm of Chat-GPT when the neighboring group created an excuse generator using Chat-GPT’s API.
This experience motivated me to attend other hackathons and just during my junior year I won 7 awards at different hackathons, even some first places. At each hackathon, I developed more complex apps. I even used Chat-GPT’s API in some of them :)
Yet my journey did not stop there. Each hackathon I attended, made a huge impact on me. It was an opportunity for learning, for making friends and memories.
When I was at school one day, I excitedly told my friends I would be attending a hackathon during the weekend and they were concerned. People around me looked at me curiously. They thought I was I was part of some hacker gang and I was going to hack a company and expose some corporate secrets. They then asked me which company I was going to hack and if what I was doing was legal! Amid laughing like crazy, I took the time to explain to them the essence of a hackathon.
Then an idea struck me. A lot of students in my school have never attended a hackathon and a hackathon had never been hosted at my school. I decided to organize my school’s first hackathon. Months of relentless effort culminated in the launch of the hackathon. Amidst the preparations, even the day before my AP exams, I found myself visiting the venue to check if it was large enough to accommodate the participants.
Overall, it was a huge success with over a hundred participants. I later jokingly asked my friends which company they hacked during the hackathon I hosted and they said none. During the summer (after attending my hackathon) many of my classmates attended other hackathons and taught coding skills they learned at the hackathon I hosted to younger children in my community.
This was my journey with hackathons during my junior year and I hope that as my senior year is approaching I can attend more hackathons and maybe host one more!
