About twice a semester I’ll go to a hackathon as a break from school to visit a new place, make some new friends, and see some familiar faces. What? Aren’t hackathons for making projects? Aren’t you going to be busy coding non-stop for 24 hours? Don’t you want to win a prize or build the next big app? The answer is a resounding no.

I’ve heard of a few myths about hackathons from friends and around the internet in the past couple of months, and a couple of them, in my opinion, are true. The majority of them are not. I’m going to get right into it and address three big ones in the following:

You need to build a project

This is the most common one and also the least true. I’ve been to seven hackathons since I first got to college and I didn’t even know how to declare a variable at the first two. For the next five, I either didn’t make anything or made a dirty mash up of code which I didn’t feel proud of. Does that mean I shouldn’t have gone to those hackathons? Not at all. In fact, I don’t think I would even be writing this blog post if I didn’t go to those.

The biggest reason would be that I just would not have learned as much. You should have two goals in mind when going to a hackathon:

  • To learn something new
  • To meet people
  • To have a good time

But isn’t the whole point of a hackathon to build a project? No, let me explain. I can almost guarantee that at your first hackathon you will not be able to make a project or even come close. The basic programming skills that schools teach are good and are necessary fundamentals, but they will not teach you enough to make an award-winning project. Instead, you should focus on learning a new technology whether it be a framework or a language. You could do this by asking people, or by making a mini project, but there is no better environment for learning than being surrounded by people who are smarter than you.

For the same reason, you should be meeting people because they will (hopefully) inspire you. For me, seeing people who were so much smarter than me made me want to learn more. On top of that, you get to meet new and interesting people who will make you feel more at home in the hackathon scene. If you attend a hackathon away from your schools, you should try to have a good time so that you don’t regret spending your weekend away from home. You should only be trying to build a project if you are confident in your abilities and feel like you have a strong team. In that case, you can focus on that project instead of learning new stuff (don’t forget to sleep though).

You need a team

It can be a lot of fun to go to a hackathon and code with your friends. If you can’t gather enough friends, then going to a hackathon alone isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Every single hackathon I’ve been to has had a team-building period where you can either start a team on your own or join an existing one. You will probably meet a good team, but even if you don’t it isn’t a big deal. You could just leave if it is too much of a hassle for you, and spend the time working on your own thing. It might seem like a rude thing to do, but the team can find another person. I had a bad experience forming a team of random people once and I only wish I had left the team sooner. Remember, you should be having a good time.

Hackathons are competitive

Admittedly, there are a few hackathon-goers that are fighting to be the next Zuckerburg. The vast majority of them, though, are not. You can go up to any team at a hackathon and ask them for help and I can say with almost 100% certainty that they will go out of their way to help you. The hackathon community is not only really helpful towards newbies, but it’s also full of extremely intelligent and experienced people who have faced struggles of their own. Sometimes they can be weird, sometimes they can be narcissists, and sometimes they can be frustrated, but they will almost always be helpful.

So What?

I personally think that you should give hackathons at least two tries: one where you go without a full team, and one where you go with a full time. If you didn’t enjoy either of those, then maybe hackathons aren’t for you. For everyone else, I wholeheartedly encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and sign up for a hackathon as soon as possible, even if you know nothing about coding. You’ll have fun and hopefully gain some coding experience under your belt as well.