Every college should require (or at least strongly encourage) students to do one hackathon, regardless of major.
Not because everyone needs to become a software engineer.
But because building something in 24 to 48 hours changes how you think.
You learn how to go from idea to execution.
You learn how messy shipping actually is.
You learn how to collaborate under pressure.
You realize how much you can figure out when you’re forced to.
When I went to CalHacks in SF, I saw history majors, music majors, and people who had never written serious code before building real products. That shouldn’t be surprising, but it was powerful validation that this isn’t just a “CS kid” thing.
Hackathons aren’t about coding.
They’re about bias toward action.
And that mindset is useful whether you’re going into finance, medicine, law, policy, art, or engineering.
Every student should experience building something from scratch at least once.
It changes you.