My Experience at Morgan Stanley’s Code to Give Hackathon 2025: A Ride Worth Remembering

Welcome back to The Nerdy Nook, where we normally dissect code and tech, but today, let’s switch gears and talk about something more personal—my experience at the Morgan Stanley Code to Give 2025 Hackathon*.* Although we didn’t walk away with the trophy, reaching the finals felt like a massive win in itself.

📩 The Beginning: A Surprise in the Inbox

Flashback to February. We received an email from our placement cell about an upcoming hackathon—Morgan Stanley’s Code to Give. The mail had all the juicy details and instructions to register.

Fast forward to March 22–23, the online assessment took place. It had three sections:

• Code Debugging

• Aptitude

• DSA Questions (Think LeetCode Medium to Hard)

It was a race against the clock, but I somehow managed to crack them before time ran out. A few days later, I received the golden mail—I was shortlisted for the hackathon round, and guess what? I was the only one selected from my Baddi campus! My five teammates were all from the Rajpura campus (shoutout to our college’s two-campus setup!).

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🤝 Team Meetups & The Kickoff

My amazing teammates were: Soumya, Jaskirat, Piyush, Harneet, and Kritica—super talented folks who brought diverse skills and fantastic energy to the table.

Soon after, Piyush reached out and connected all of us through email. We created a group chat and had a couple of team meetings before the hackathon to break the ice and understand each other’s tech stacks. Unsurprisingly, we were all riding the MERN stack wave—a dream setup for synergy.

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🚀 Kickoff and Mentorship

The official kickoff happened on March 20 after a vibrant orientation session. We were introduced to our assigned mentors from Morgan Stanley—and trust me, these folks weren’t just experts, they were downright humble and helpful.

We quickly distributed the workload—I took charge of the backend alongside Piyush. The rest of the team worked across the frontend for website and app and also presentation layer.

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💻 The 7-Day Adventure: Sleepless Nights & Debugging Fights

And thus began the 7-day grind.

The days that followed were pure adrenaline:

• Last-minute tech hiccups before mentor meets

• Late-night debugging marathons

• Daily report submissions and presentations

Despite being a virtual hackathon, the collaboration felt seamless, thanks to our consistency and communication. Our mentors were absolute legends—going out of their way to support and guide us, even with their jam-packed schedules.

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🎤 The Final Showdown: Evaluations & Presentations

The hackathon culminated in two intense evaluation rounds:

Round 1

• 7 mins presentation + 3 mins Q&A

• We were the first team to present, and Jaskirat and Harneet executed the presentation flawlessly. Our demo exceeded expectations. We had a good feeling about this one.

Round 2

• 5 mins presentation + 2 mins Q&A

• Again, Jaskirat and Harneet stepped up and kicked things off, setting the tone for everyone else.

We did everything right, gave it our all, but the stars didn’t quite align that day. We narrowly missed the top spot.

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🌟 Final Thoughts: It Was Never Just About Winning

Sure, the trophy eluded us—but what we gained? Absolutely priceless.

• Real-world collaboration

• Product development under pressure

• Incredible mentor feedback

• And friendships that started with a Slack ping

This hackathon was more than just a competition; it was an experience that shaped us, and I know it’ll carry forward in every line of code I write next.

Have you ever participated in a hackathon? Let’s geek out in the comments! 💬👇