Austin Scholar #93: How my friends and I built an online course in 48 hours
& a framework for running your own teen Hackathon
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: How my friends and I built an online course in 48 hours
A framework for running your own teen Hackathon
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been reading…
So… I had my Oxford interviews this week. Unfortunately, I didn’t do as well as I had hoped to, so I had a few sad days. I think I said the Serenity Prayer twenty times in a row, though, so I’m feeling much better now :)
On another note, I landed my first Lutz jump (an ice skating move) this week and am working up to my axel!! Having a sport as a hobby, not a stressor, is one of the best decisions I’ve made. I get to enjoy working out my nervous energy in a way where I can actually see progress. Highly recommend doing this yourself – finding ways to have fun while being active.
Austin’s Anecdote: How my friends and I built an online course in 48 hours
High schoolers can do anything.
My classmates and I just spent 48 hours this weekend:
Creating a 4-week online course on how to have a 75% chance at getting into an Ivy League (with speaker scripts, exercises, breakout rooms, etc.)
Making a 30-page Second Brain with all of the best information from experts in the field
Making 100+ marketing videos for TikTok and Instagram and writing a PR plan
Already have 250,000 views on Instagram (@75percentchance)
Already have 500,000 views on TikTok (@75percentchance)
Creating a Twitter account following the top 100 experts in this space
Creating a landing page and email capture system
Already have 100 people on the waitlist
Writing a book (yes, a full book) to go along with the course
Creating a GPT to calculate admissions chances
Creating a ChatBot powered by the Second Brain
Writing a 2-minute pitch for the course (posted on the website)
Writing a Succession Plan for our next CEO
How? Well, we used the Y-School framework.
At the beginning of the weekend, our group of eight students got together to choose a project to spend 48 hours on. Having discussed it a little bit already with our Alpha guides, we decided to create the 75% chance workshop.
We’d identified that college counselors are pretty much lying to students about what top admissions officers are looking for and hurting their chances at getting into an Ivy League. We wanted to rectify this.
We spent hours that first day researching everything about college admissions – finding Harvard statistics and reading books by ex-college admissions officers. We then compiled all of our information into a Second Brain and started discussing what would go into a workshop.
Once the basic ideas of the workshop were developed, we split up.
My sister and her best friend took to TikTok, working to gain traction for the idea. They probably spent over twelve hours writing and filming TikTok videos, constantly experimenting and working to go viral.
Another one of my friends – who didn’t have any coding experience, just an eye for design – began working on the landing page. He had to learn basic copywriting and how to create an email capture system. He crushed it, though.
A pair of sisters worked together to create a college admissions chance simulator and ChatBot using the Second Brain – eventually using AI to write an actual book titled “75% Chance.” Insane.
In between all of this work, we went out to a nice dinner and spent a few hours swimming around in a lazy river to refresh our brains.
As a whole, we were all so supportive of one another and fully committed to achieving our goals. That made it easy for each of us to feed off of their energy and continue to crush it, which then continued the cycle.
We did some insane things in 48 hours – most of which we’d never done before.
And that’s the power of the Y-School framework.
A framework for running your own teen Hackathon
First off, if this is something you’re interested in your child being able to do, connect with Alpha High.
But you can, of course, try this on your own.
Here’s how you can do this type of Hackathon in a weekend: