My first hackathon
Looking back at our very first hackathon. We showed up with zero experience, panicked over learning React in a single night, and ended up with a Figma prototype instead of a working app. It was chaotic, but it completely changed how we build today.
Photo by UP Computer Science Guild
Freshman year. We walked into our first hackathon with big dreams and basically zero experience. At the time, our coding knowledge stopped at basic C++ and some simple HTML/CSS. Mentioning React, Next.js, or databases would have just earned you a blank stare.
We spent the first few hours completely lost, trying to figure out what to even build before finally landing on a mentor-mentee matchmaking system. I literally spent the night before the competition trying to learn React from scratch—spoiler alert: you can't master React in one night, especially not during an 6-hour sprint.
Realizing we were out of our depth technically, we pivoted. Instead of coding a half-baked app, we focused on designing a solid prototype in Figma. We really wanted to add an AI-powered time management chatbot, but reality (and our limited tech stack) quickly humbled us.
We didn't walk away with a working product, but honestly? It was exactly what we needed. It was a crash course in why preparation, tooling, and having a realistic technical plan matter. We left that venue knowing exactly what we needed to learn, and that wake-up call was worth way more than a trophy.