We just finished week 4 of CSTUY’s Hacking Sessions. I’m really happy with how our hackers are doing - they’re a great bunch and even if they don’t realize it yet, are making great progress. Meanwhile, as an instructor and program designer I’m noticing the differences between a once a week program and having a class every day (note - I’m not the sole designer or instructor. I have a great team - JonAlf, Sam, and Topher are three of the best teachers I’ve had the privilege of working with - this post, however, is based on my observations).

Saturday was the second day of CSTUY’s Hacking Sessions. We started out wit a minor panic - none of the laptops could connect to the wireless!!! After a brief scramble, we finally gave up and gave our host a call (sorry Davin) and the problem was swiftly addressed. From there it was off to the races. Last week we spent most of the session with mixers and setting up the laptops.

Yesterday was my 46th birthday. How did I spend it? Well, 20 “Hackers” from 9 schools, 4 student TAs and a few of us teachers gathered at SumAll to kick off CSTUY’s first weekly program - Hacking Sessions (sometimes called Hackers Sessions). It was the first week so it was mostly mixers, setting up machines (installing Linux on 24 laptops takes time) and going over how we’ll be communicating but I’m really excited about the weeks to come.