I am one of the lucky Hacker School alumni, and I can't say enough good things about it. For those of you afraid it is just a recruiting tool, fear not, only if you want it to be. The word was mentioned only in the beginning and end of the experience. This is not what the experience is motivated by. It is motivated by curiosity and learning.

If you are thinking of joining, you might be interested in a blog post I wrote about my journey to Hacker School and what it meant to me: http://sethmurphy.com/my_programming_reboot