Meet the Team: Vishal — Director of Logistics
I was introduced to hackathons when I was a junior in high school back in India. An alumni had visited us and talked about this completely foreign event which was focused on building cool things, experimenting new technologies and simultaneously, having tremendous fun. The enthusiasm in his voice made me interested. When he mentioned that it wasn’t like a competition, I got excited. He mentioned free food and I was sold.
Fast forward, I had my college decisions due. I was debating between a couple of schools and like every other confused student, I had a variety of variables to base my decision on. One fine morning, as I was switching tabs between USNews and College Confidential like every other day, suddenly the world came to a standstill.
The winds started whirling, animals started making weird noises, and Nicholas Cage barged right into my house and screamed, “Hackathons!”
Immediately, I closed incognito. Facebook’d hackathon pages and without a doubt, I had made my decision. Believe it or not, one of the major reasons of why I chose Rutgers was because of its super cool hackathon community. Yes, the decision might have been naive considering it was just based on lurking a couple of Facebook pages; however, as I have witnessed this place first-hand since the past three semesters, I do assert that I made the right choice.
The Rutgers Hackathon community is largely motivated by the desire to build things for fun. While some communities are incentivized on competing, I do feel the hackathon community here is not like that. And this specific approach towards building, drives me the most towards it. We build for the love of building. We travel every weekend, packing up cars and buses, to learn, experiment and break things. We motivate everyone, regardless of their background in programming, to attend hackathons and create memories. Last semester, a friend of mine went as far as Canada for his first hackathon to experience this culture. And mind you, he is not even interested in programming.
Attending these hackathons has helped me not only increase my technical knowledge but also brought me into an environment that is filled with smart, generous and welcoming people. I am a person who gets influenced a lot by its surroundings. I try to use that trait to my advantage, by being around people who I respect and wish to be like. And by being an active member of this community, I certainly feel that I’ve had an influence in how I approach a lot of things. In a nutshell: I try to judge less, do more, try helping and have unnecessary amounts of soylent.
This semester, I’m glad to be helping HackRU with logistics. We’re working on having more buses, a larger venue and having all the facilities that can make everyone’s experience much smoother. So, if you experience a super spacious HackRU because a cosy bus was sent your way, feel free to send me a toffee.
Love,
Vishal, Tall Tolerable Human
