A guide to leveling up your application for Hack Western 8

Hack Western receives thousands of applications every year, and we want to make sure you put your best foot forward when applying to Hack Western 8! Here is a quick overview of the application process, and an inside look at how we review your application.

About You

Hack Western welcomes hundreds of hackers a year from around the world with varying degrees of hackathon experience! We want to get a sense of your background and experiences — don’t worry if you’re a first-time hacker! Hack Western is one of the best ways to start your hacking career.

Your Story

We’d love to hear about your story — including your passion for technology and past experimentation with new tools or ideas. Both are equally as important to us.

Tell us about a cool project that you worked on or want to work on (it doesn’t have to be technical!)

We want to get a sense of your passion for creating new things, whether it be a kickass project you’ve worked on before or something completely new you want to bring to Hack Western 8. We believe that learning by doing, building new things with amazing people is the best way of learning — so feel free to showcase your teamwork skills here.

Feel free to write about that web tool or phone app you’ve always been meaning to build — or that hardware project you have sitting in your basement. We just want to see your passion for building things and what you learned throughout the process. Hack Western 8 is the place for creativity and innovation, and we want to see that in your project experience as well!

What is one skill you would like to level up at Hack Western 8?

Hack Western isn’t just about deep technical ability and building complex projects — we want to ensure all hackers have an opportunity to learn as well. Tell us about the one skill you hope to improve/gain out of the weekend, so we have a sense of what you’re excited about! This question is not only for us to get to know you, but for the Hack Western team to get a sense of what programming we should provide to help you reach your goals.

What do you hope to accomplish or take away from Hack Western 8?

This year’s Hack Western theme is level up! We want to know, beyond a technical tool, how do you plan on leveling up at Hack Western 8? Whether it’s a certain project you want to pursue, or making new friends, we want to hear about your goals for the event.

Think about why you decided to apply to Hack Western, and what you hope to gain and “level up” on after the weekend!

Resume and Github

This is your chance to show off your technical ability, demonstrating to us that you can follow through on the projects you’re envisioning for the weekend. We aren’t looking for every tech stack and framework here, just a progression of your learning journey!

Again, if this is your first hackathon — don’t worry! We want to see how entering the hacking space will add value to your journey, and how you’ll apply your newfound technical skills after the event.