This weekend I did something brave, something very brave for someone like me. I did a Hackathon.
Many of my friends know me as someone who's constantly pushing boundaries and doing new things: learning a 4th language, organizing events, volunteering, etc., but doing a Hackathon was certainly not one of them. I myself would never think of doing one. Why? Because I didn't know how to code.
As a business student, I was more used to business competitions like GBCC, BCC, Hult Prize and so on. It wasn't until I came to UBC when I was exposed to "hackathons". For 6 months I was sitting on the fence - to join, or not?
I don't know anything about coding. What am I supposed to do? How can I help my teammates if I don't know the first thing about hacking
But my gut feeling was also telling me to take a leap of faith
The unknown is scary. But I'm braver.
It took a while (6 months to be exact), but in my 7th month at UBC, I participated in Cmd-f, BC's first all-female* hackathon. Disclaimer: this is not a blog about what I did in the 24-hour competition, what I found difficult and what I learned. That is another blog for another day. This is the story of me, doing had done something truly brave, where I did not mind the lack of (coding) experience.
I knew that I would not reach the final round, I knew that I would not be able to come up with something "extraordinary" or "ground-breaking", but I knew that I will have fun, I will learn something new, and I will have a memorable weekend.
And I was right :) It turned out to be much better than I had anticipated:
I met 4 amazing teammates
I learned (a bit) about HTML, Android Studio and API
I designed the layout and illustrations of our app
We delivered an incredible pitch
and WE finished strong with a product that everyone was proud of
We were not perfect, but we were GREAT. Most girls are taught to avoid risk and failure, to stay to the status quo, to be comfortable and follow designated paths. Even when we are ambitious when we want to do something not-that-typical, we are held back by the socialization of expectations, quote on quote, "socialization of perfection".
I went to an SQL workshop earlier this week, and the instructor said something that caught my attention:
I lOVE when there is an ERROR message on my code. It means something not quite right. It means I am constructing my own code every time. It energizes me to go back and try again
We should give ourselves, people of all genders, of all ages, of all backgrounds, the permission to fail. We all need the latitude to try out new things. Embrace the failure, not just "learn" from it, but "be proud" of it as well.
So there I was. 48 hours doing something I would never imagine myself doing - "hacking". But coming into that 48-hour hackathon, I knew 1 thing for sure - I wanted to be brave, not perfect. And so can you :)
* "female" or "women" is not an accurate description for many people and it may make some feel unwelcome. The "*" is used to specifically and intentionally include cis and trans women, non-binary, agender, intersex people, and all other gender minorities (from the cmd-f team)