This weekend, hackers took over the library for Kent Hack Enough (KHE) – a 36-hour long hackathon where students built everything from games to automated coffee machines to compete for prizes.

The event was highly competitive, but still gave new coders a lot to do. KHE offered the Freshman 15: 15 one-hour courses that went over coding basics like HTML and JavaScript. Students were given the chance to build their own webpages with the help of the KHE staff.

We believe everyone should attend a hackathon, regardless of their major, at least once. Coding can be confusing to newcomers. Learning it is like learning a new language – but just like knowing a foreign language helps when applying for a job – coding does, too.

It is rare to find a job in modern society where a person will not have at least some interaction with a computer or the Internet. Knowing the basics of how a webpage works or how to fix simple bugs will impress future employers and might help to avoid the IT department. Plus, who doesn’t love spending 36 hours surrounded by some of the school’s most innovative minds while eating free food? We sure do. 

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of The Kent Stater editorial board.