Hackathons for the Uninitiated
Unsure of what a hackathon is? No worries! Jenny was initially intimidated, nervous, and unsure of what to expect at a hackathon. However, she’s so happy she made the decision to sign-up for TechTogether Miami.
Read below an in-depth article of Jenny’s experience.
I’ll admit it — my first experience with a hackathon started with me wondering “what the heck is a hackathon??” before I shrugged and signed up anyway (I may have briefly considered that my friend had sent me the link to TechTogether Miami in error).
However, as we all have learned through the pandemic — one of the joys of virtual events is that you can always shut your laptop and go for a comforting pint of ice cream if you don’t enjoy where you are. Much less awkward than physically backing out of a room while mumbling about “another commitment, must go.”
Attending TechTogether Miami would prove to keep my ice cream addiction in check; however, welcoming mentors, knowledgeable workshop hosts, and friendly participants all made sure everyone was included and I felt entirely comfortable at every turn.
For those of my fellow self-described ‘non-techy’ and new-to-tech friends I offer this brief explanation of a hackathon — a short ‘marathon’ of ‘hacking’ where you work with a team to build a project. Honestly that definition may have swayed me from signing up for TechTogether Miami altogether had I read it before committing. You see, I am but a young padawan just dipping my toes into the vast lake that is the tech world — I had been learning web development for under a month before signing up.
Being told I would be taking on a big coding project sounds bad enough, but having to convince strangers that I would be an asset for their team makes me want to just curl up on the sofa with my dog for the weekend instead.
If this line of thinking sounds familiar to you, know that you are not alone. Most people experience this ‘imposter syndrome’ at some point or another. The trick is to not let it bully you out of attending events, competing in hacks or going after your dreams. Or, you can do like I did and attend your first hackathon and just… not do the hack part.
I know, I know! How can one attend a hackathon and not participate in the hack?! It’s in the name for goodness sake! Well friends, that’s the other bit about hackathons I didn’t know before signing up: they aren’t just for hacking. TechTogether Miami was a jam packed weekend with workshops on everything from building basic websites, to tweaking your LinkedIn to attract more connections, to getting started in building games. My personal favorite workshop taught me how to craft a basic phishing email that can get past email filters (and yes I promise I won’t use that skill for evil. Probably).
The online hackathon format worked really well. We had a Discord server that was always popping with pictures of cute pets, mentors answering questions or making suggestions on projects, and new friends coming together to form teams. Workshops were hosted over Zoom, so the video calls helped you feel like you were really there with people. And of course it wasn’t all learning and serious programming. We relaxed at night with games, music parties and even karaoke.
At the end of the weekend, the closing ceremony gave me an opportunity to see what the competing hackers had come up with. And let me just say — there were some amazing projects that I was surprised came together in only one weekend.
But more than that, there were some projects I looked through that gave me a moment of “I could do something like that!” Not that these projects were any less impressive, but rather I had managed to out-bully my inner imposter syndrome from making my decisions for me with the help of all the support and encouragement from all the lovely ‘techy’ people I had met over the weekend.
So, after I had updated my LinkedIn by adding all my new TechTogether friends (and confirmed in an exit survey where to send my newly won swag to) the first thing I did after the event concluded was sign-up for the next TechTogether hackathon. And this time, I will be telling my imposter syndrome to hush, because I will be joining a team and competing fully. I hope to see you there.
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