One of the Best Summers Ever: My HackNY Fellowship Experience
This summer was probably one of the best I’ve ever had, and a lot of it is due to HackNY. It was a summer full of adventure (and work), all in the most magical city in the world—New York City. In this blog post, I’ll talk a bit about my application process, summer fellowship experience, internship highlights, and all the cool things I did throughout the summer!
I applied for HackNY a bit late, around late December. Thankfully, the deadline was extended, and it all worked out. I applied with an internship already, so I only had a behavioral interview, which was pretty much straight to the point (and nothing to stress about, for those applying this year!)
Summer Highlights
Before diving into my internship, I had a glorious week of “funemployment” (a term my roommates and I affectionately coined). During this golden week, we went all in on ClassPass, signing up for 7am classes. Booking a class at 2am? Extremely easy. Getting out of bed four hours later? It felt like a personal trial from the universe. We made our way through yoga, pilates, boxing, and cycling—maybe not gracefully, but we got through it. The real comedy came during our early morning pickleball sessions. Picture a bunch of sleep-deprived people trying to hit a ball with a paddle before the sun was even up. We finished off these mornings with smoothies because if you’re going to be bad at sports, at least do it with a reward in hand.
Also, I would like to mention that we continued doing all this throughout the summer (even after the oh so amazing funemployment period was over). It was just nice to kick off the summer with that week!
Then there was the little pizza parlor in Downtown Brooklyn that became our slice of heaven. The margherita pizza was SO good. This place was the unofficial heart of the HackNY 24 class. It became our go-to spot after speaker series events.
Another highlight was catching Wicked on Broadway with my roommates. Some of them were tearing up by the end—turns out, musicals are a great way to get your friends to embrace their inner drama queens. And if you’re ever in Times Square, definitely watch the Midnight Minute. At around 11:57pm, the screens change to display some artist’s work. It’s a little underwhelming, but just one of those tourist things you’ve got to do while you’re in the city.
HackNY Fellowship Experience
Now, onto the actual HackNY fellowship experience , I don’t even know where to start…
The fellowship was packed with cool events, but the real highlight was the people. I felt welcomed by an amazing group of fellows from day one. I was able to learn a lot from the other fellows, and immediately felt welcome by each. It was just an incredible group of people, which I am immensely grateful to be a part of.
The workshops and weekend events were a blast. We hiked upstate New York, visited amusement parks, enjoyed food crawls in Queens (shout out to Moody), picnicked in Governors Island, and kicked off with a hackathon where we met a lot of the alumni! Meeting and hanging out with alumni from the start was a major plus. It was like attending a family reunion where everyone is incredibly cool and knows how to network. Seeing past fellows still involved and attending HackNY events was also very heartwarming. It was a clear sign that this community is as strong as it is supportive.
Moving onto the speaker series, I was really able to learn a lot about startups this summer. It was a huge eye opener for me. Before the fellowship, I had really never thought about joining a startup or even creating my own. It was just unknown territory to me. However, after meeting so many founders and learning about all the niche fields that can be intersected with technology, I really started considering joining a startup post-grad. Some standout talks included Ambrook, BlockParty, and Creating Music with Code. All of them explored different areas and had creative solutions that leveraged tech creatively.
Something that I really appreciated was the support HackNY gave its fellows in terms of programming around our interests. I think it was the second or third week of the fellowship that I asked our director, Shy, if I could request a speaker, and if they could try bringing them in for one of our events. I received full support from HackNY, and was also given the opportunity to interview her myself!! That really stood out to me, for both the amazing experience and the support I was given. So for any of the incoming fellows, if there’s something specific you want - definitely ask!! HackNY will try its best to make it happen :)
Conclusion
Overall, my summer with HackNY was packed with memorable experiences, valuable lessons, and some amazing people. I’m genuinely grateful for the opportunity and everyone I met along the way. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I’d definitely say yes —though next time, I might try to get a little more sleep between 7 AM workouts and late-night pizza runs.
