The GitHub Student Developer Pack

Osama Akhtar
3 min readSep 26, 2020

This article is now added to my own blog site. To read more articles like this, please visit: https://oakhtar.vercel.app/

You might be a programming enthusiast who just got accepted in your dream college or you might even have spent a good year or two in computer science discipline and barely know about GitHub.

GitHub is a version control where code lives. It is where people share their hard work for others to see and contribute to. It is used by companies like Google, Microsoft amongst many others to maintain their codebase.

But to a student it provides much more than that. GitHub has a Student Developer Pack which they provide to students. This pack includes benefits worth a whopping $200k!

How do I apply?

This program requires you to:

  1. Be a student having a GitHub account;
  2. 13+ years old.
  3. Be in any degree-granting program that isn’t restricted by the institution’s accreditation.
  4. Provide an evidence of your being a student. This could be your school issued email-address, your school ID card or any other form of documentation.

If you check out these requirements, you are all in for it! You just need to apply for the pack. You will be asked to fill out a short form where you will be asked basic information including an image of your academic status (ID card, for instance). It is necessary that you fill valid information and upload a clear, decipherable image, or else you could risk getting rejected (see this to avoid getting rejected).

Okay, but why should I apply?

This is the exciting part. When I found about the Student Pack, I was overwhelmed by the developer tools I was going to get — for free!

Ranging from developer tools to productivity, GitHub is committed to give facilities to students that will help them learn, be more productive with their time and get acquainted with technologies, technologies that a college student does not usually have the budget to afford.

The program also includes free subscriptions (either limited or unlimited) to educational sites like AWS Educate and DataCamp. This provides them an opportunity to introduce themselves to new and trending sub-disciplines of software, and potentially master them!

So if you dream of becoming a game developer, a web developer or a designer, you cannot miss this pack. You can view the details of the tools provided by this program here.

Sounds interesting, does the program expire?

Yes, this program is only for students and will expire after two years since the day of acceptance. But you can always renew your subscription if you are still a student!

I am amazed, what else does GitHub offer me?

The Student Developer Pack is definitely A large chunk of the benefits they provide students, but other significant incentives are also included:

1. GitHub Campus Expert Program:

If you feel the need to lead a team to promote tech in your local campus by carrying out workshops and hackathons, this program would make you capable of doing so. It has a dedicated training that helps you improve your skills like public speaking, leadership etc. Read this article by a GitHub Campus Expert to get valuable insights about this program.

2. Throw a hackathon or a small event at your college:

GitHub can help you ship a 1000$ grant through their links with Major League Hacking (MLH). This can either be a massive hackathon or a small workshop.

3. GitHub Pro

GitHub Pro would allow you additional features when using GitHub. These features are tech-y and not what I would like to share here. You can always read about them in their documentation. Oh yes, amongst many other benefits you get with GitHub Pro, you also get to boast about a Pro Badge on your GitHub profile!

To conclude, the GitHub Student benefits are something you should harness immediately. These incentives will definitely make your work more productive and fun. What do you like the most about this program? Let me know in the comments!

Be sure to follow me on Medium as well as GitHub!

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