This past weekend, I participated in a Hackathon, and it was quite possibly the most fun event I have ever been a part of. 

It was my first Hackathon and since I am pretty new to computer science in general, I was very nervous that I would have no idea what I was doing, and worse, drag my team down.

But when I got there, I was pleasantly surprised to find that really no one knew what they were doing. I mean, some knew more than others of course, but at the end of the day we were all crying over a login button for four hours together. 

But I feel like that was what made it so much fun; we all just got crash courses on the tools we would use for ten minutes at the beginning of the event before we dove in headlong and just muddled our way through the project together.

And the greatest part was, though of course the event organizers were a tremendous help throughout the whole process, there were times when even they didn't know the answer to a question and told me to Google it. Which was refreshing, to say the least.

Hearing that was amazing because I realized that the career path I am on allows that, encourages it even. I know people always say you can "just Google it!" but to actually see a professional doing it and encouraging it was a very different matter. It was such a relief to see people who are successful in computer science not knowing everything.

So, as a newly initiated Hackathon-er, I wholeheartedly recommend this experience to everyone. It's great for meeting new people who are passionate about the same things you are and learning a staggering amount in a very short amount of time. Also there are lots of cool prizes!