This is valid, but in the college CS world, doing hackathons is a very good predictor that you're also building your own stuff outside of them. It also shows y

This is valid, but in the college CS world, doing hackathons is a very good predictor that you're also building your own stuff outside of them. It also shows you're experienced enough to not be afraid. The best part of hackathons is going from 0 - X on some new technology, in a much faster way than if you had picked it up on your own, in the evenings. You know you're going to learn for a good 36 hours and try to build a real thing with it, so you won't give up after the first tutorial. Not every hackathon hacker uses a technology that's new to them, but a large amount do.