I have been going to hackathons pretty regularly lately. I found out about the hackathon community only this fall and I have been to three hackathons since September 2015. I wish I knew about the hackathon community earlier. What are hackathons you might ask? Hackathons are events where entrepreneurs, programmers and designers go to make something cool. I just got back from HackPrinceton at Princeton University. It was a lot of fun. Most students do not go to hackathons with an intention of winning.

I went to HackPrinceton to learn something new and meet some smart people.

Hackathons are not just for entrepreneurs, programmers, and designers. Hackathons are for any creative person interested in making something cool.

1. Hackathons provide a way for you to learn something new.
   You learn so much more from hackathons in a short amount of time than you ever could by just sitting through classes all day because hackathons give you access to mentors from top tech companies like Google and Facebook. And you also get access to professors and students from prestigious schools like Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. So if you want to learn something crazy and cool like machine learning or building something cool with hardware like a smart door, hackathons give you the necessary knowledge and resources.
2. Hackathons are fun.
   You get to hang out with other creative makers for 36 hours. You get to stay up all night. You get to jump around in bouncy houses. You get to learn things that interests you. I think these things are a lot of fun. If you are a dedicated hacker who goes to many hackathons, you will also get to visit many universities. I got to visit Princeton, for example. Princeton has a beautiful campus.
3. This one is kind of related to the previous one. Hackathons reimburse you to some degree.
   Hackathons are student organized, but they get funded by some big sponsors like Google, Facebook, Walmart, Disney, etc. So, they try to reimburse as much of your travel expenses as they can. When I went to Princeton, they reimbursed $150 from my travel expenses. And the prices you might win will make up for the rest of the expenses. At HackPrinceton, we won a Raspberry Pi Starter Kit, those things are worth about $80. If your hacks are really good, you might will Oculus Devkits which are worth $600.
4. Hackathons giveaway a lot of swag
   By swag, I mean t-shirts and stickers. Most hackathon attendees get some cool t-shirts. And everyone at hackathons have very decorated laptops with stickers from Google, Facebook, etc.
5. Finally, hackathons give you the opportunity to solve some problem that is important to you.
   Most students at hackathons are not computer science students. People work on some problem that is important to them. At MHacks for example, there was an autistic student who attended the hackathon. His team worked on a Google Glass app for autistic people. The app scanned people's faces and told autistic people what emotions they were feeling since autistic people struggle with seeing and understanding people's emotions. There were also some medical students who made something to help people live healthier.