Weekly Update, June 13th

Hi, everyone! How are you doing?

After receiving tons of questions about Hackathons during these last couples of weeks, I decided to write a newsletter fully dedicated to it :B

Let's start with the basics, so why should you even join a hackathon? I highly recommend participating on a hackathon as a beginner. This experience will help you achieve like a month’s worth of learning, all crammed into a day or two & connect you with some amazing developers along the way!

It can specially feel intimidating on your first time attending one, that's why it's important to remember that no matter the level of your coding skills, you will always be able to contribute to the team (& it doesn't even have to be tech-related!). If you don't have a ready-formed team to go to one, that's 100% okay. Many people go alone to hackathons and build up their teams there :)

Moral of the story: Don't be afraid to go to a hackathon alone! You will get to meet an awesome group of people & experience the whole lifecycle of a project.

Here are some resources to get you started:

• Podcast: What Is a Hackathon and How Do You Prepare for One With Gwendolyn Faraday (S6E11): https://learntocodewith.me/podcast/what-is-a-hackathon/
• Article from FreeCodeCamp: Hackathons 101 — and why you should consider going to one: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/hack-a-thons-101-why-you-should-consider-going-to-one-8b0c21923a98/
• Chapter 10 (fully dedicated to Hackathons) of my book "Learn to Code. Get a Job.": https://gwenfaraday.com/books/

So, do you plan to join a Hackathon in 2022? Let me know on Discord!

Have a great week,

-Gwen