Happy Reading Break, to those of you who are currently on break mode right now! Otherwise, happy Monday! This weekend, I participated in my first-ever hackathon called Hack for Humanity, sponsored by the Vancouver chapter of Girls in Tech and UBC. I have heard of hackathons all over throughout the design, business, and tech industries, but have never gotten the chance to participate in one myself, as most of them require you to submit an application, or get you to stay at the host venue overnight - after all, that is one of the main points of a hackathon, is to complete a project in a span of 24 hours, all in one go. However, I just so happened to stumble upon the Facebook event page for Girls in Tech's Hack for Humanity randomly, and was immediately drawn into the details.

Hacking for a cause?
Uniting females, but also all genders who have a passion for coding and technology?
No need to stay at the location overnight or stay up all night and losing hours of sleep?
Count me in!

To spare myself the time from re-writing my entire experience at UBC and RED Academy on my website, you can read my full article here, which is published by Her Campus SFU, where I write articles pertaining to student and undergraduate life.

I will say that before signing up for this hackathon, I did have preconceived ideas as to what I would expect, mostly from reading about these events through social media and blog and news posts online. While some of my thoughts were correct, such as slaving away my entire day devoted to creating a project to the best of my ability, I never would have thought I would have receive free swag and get the chance to network with students and industry professionals. One of the sponsors, Diamond, gave away their pro software to participants for free for a lifetime! Day 2 at RED Academy was truly an experience - aside from stuffing my face in burritos, participants had the chance to view other projects and talk to the judges, many of whom are already tech or coding professionals working in the industry. I got to chat with an individual who was one of the first BuCS (Combined Business and Computer Science major) students to graduate from UBC since its inception, as well as two UBC students who turned out to be in CVC, the sister club of CAC.

Regardless of your expertise in coding or design, as long as you have an interest in technology and are willing to dip your feet into the water, I would highly recommend joining a hackathon. Now for my next one...

Cheers,