2009 - A HackCollege Year in Review
Thursday, December 31, 2009 by Kelly Sutton 
I'll be spending midnight in the beautiful (but rainy) city of Seattle. Awesome photo by flickr user kashyap_hc
Oh my. Where did that year go? 2009? Are you still there? Come back! No? Okay, we'll miss you.
Needless to say, 2009 was the best year yet for HackCollege. It was our third year in existence and the best one yet. Let's take a little bit of time closing out the year with a review from some of the most awesome points.
More Readers
Here's a secret to starting a Web site that I've noticed: as long as you keep writing, more people will keep reading. We've kept writing, and you guys have been sharing the site around.
And for that, we thank you guys for sticking with us for another year. We're getting to the point where we might be a second generation site; those who are visiting the site now are new to the whole college scene. It's a weird but exciting thing.
We wouldn't be here without you. You guys make the site what it is. We write stuff, but a lot of our suggestions come from reader emails and comments. We read every single one!
New Writers
We couldn't have been pumping out the content that we have been without some new writers. Toward the beginning of the year, we picked up two new writers: Mike Bertolino from West Chester University and Luke Turcotte from Waterloo University. They have both been awesome contributors over the past year. (How come their posts always get more comments than mine?)
During the summer, we also picked up David Pierce, a senior at University of Virginia. He's been great to have and is also quite prolific around the Web.
Chris and I couldn't have done it without these guys, so a big thanks to them. As David, Chris and I move away from the editorial side of HackCollege in 2010, we'll be looking for some new writers. Get those samples ready.
Bigger Partners
Throughout 2009, we've begun to work with some of pretty big named companies. This has been both trying and exciting. We're sticklers about editorial control (if you haven't noticed) and haven't "sold out" yet. It's exciting to work with bigger companies, because bigger companies usually means bigger budgets for cool things like parties. We're excited to see what 2010 will bring.
Parties
To me, the most exciting parts of 2009 for HackCollege were definitely the parties. In March, we teamed up with Radar.net to put together a party for UT Austin students before the start of SXSW. We tried doing a show (keyword: tried), and had a blast. Special thanks to Archana Ramachandran for helping us organizing that one.
We also worked with HP to throw an awesome party in Los Angeles in June. We gave away a dv2. We had a huge bar tab. We had an awesome DJ. We brought out a ton of people and had an amazing time. There was also dancing.
Now is a good time to give yet another shout out to these two awesome sponsors. We could not have done these parties without them. They are awesome people. Support us by supporting them. Thanks again to Radar.net and HP.
Student Bloggers and Discuss Campus
Towards October, Alex Bea from StudentBloggers.org came to us with saying he was moving on to bigger and better things. HackCollege and a few others have assumed the responsibilities of the site. We've changed things around a little bit and are no longer posting weekly student blogging round ups. We are using it as a way to band together some of the best college blogs out there to argue for what we really want in sponsorships. So when you see the same awesome companies next year sponsoring your favorite college sites, you'll know why.
We also launched a new site called Discuss Campus. It's been a great success. It allows anyone to ask or answer college-related questions. We've already got a lively community over there and are looking forward to watching it grow. And I swear I will have the highest reputation.
Making a Name for Ourselves
One of the weirdest things that has been happening more and more is that we're slowly making a name for ourselves. No longer do we hide this blogging thing that we do. Hell, I've started bringing it up at parties. (The ladies aren't exactly swooning, but I'm working on my pitch.) More and more, people have started responding with, "Oh yeah, I know that site!" whenever we mention it. Some people have even recognized us in public for our work on the site. Weird.
What were some of your favorite 2009 HackCollege moments? Leave us a comment!
Reader Comments (4)
This is a great site and is so informative. I really enjoy reading the articles.
Keep up the good work!
Congrats on the big year, Kelly. It's great to see the site continue growing. Best of luck with the next 365 here and with the SB network.
I hope it will be helpful and informative for new people. Good luck for your new blog mate.
Congratulations on all of the success! Your site discusscampus.com is a great idea, and I have already had a couple of my questions answered.