Becoming Treasurer of Knight Hacks

in the begning

When i came to UCF last fall (2025), I was admitdly alittle bummed that I didnt end up liking GT and didnt get into UF. It kinda seemed like my whole plans were thrown out the window, I didnt really know what to expect from UCF. It wasnt my plan, but i have learned in my life that sometimes things are just meant to be. My first couple weeks were just getting accustomed, my plan regardless of where i went was really just to spend my first semester getting into social circles. I realized on my summer before transferring that the whole point of going to uni was for the connections you'd make there, so i knew that i had to make it worth it. one of my friends from highschool showed me knightconnect and knight hacks was one of the first to pop up, i think i joined the discord and kinda just didnt do anything at first.

the first GBM

My first event i attended was the first GBM, i took one of my roomates. honestly not much came out of it, i actually remember the people i talked to though, kat, the design director at the time actually came up to me and we spoke briefly, and the GDK club was sitting at my table so i talked to them, now that i think about it Alejandro, was actually there right next to me and now were on the same team for 2026, thats pretty cool. The only big thing to come up was i saw a qr code for kickstart, the mentorship program they run in the spring. I used it as a way of making friends, i think this is where it all started right here.

Kickstart Team Matching

after the gbm i applied and got accepted, the first meet was a team matching day where everyone shows up and the mentors kinda just walk around and you talk and find your mentor, i remember talking to adrian, dylan, jeff, lowkey looking back at it they were hella performative LOL. As the event was coming to an end i was kinda thinking like damn i dont think i really got anyone, im just gonna get random team matched. thats when i talked to sam, sam wouldnt end up being my mentor but we talked about my experience in minecraft and he pointed me to carlos, carlos also spent alot of time in minecraft pvp so we talked and it was chill, i remember seeing him just sitting on a chair in the middle of the atrium on his phone... maybe not even an hour after that event he dms me on discord asking if i wanted to be his mentee

took it, the whole mentor thing started off pretty structured, he showed us a flowchart of what he wanted us to do, resume update, portfolio (this one right here), as time continued i ended up being more accustomed to my group, adan and carlos were the two i kept in touch with the most. I spent alot of time kinda just coasting at this point KH wise handling other things. I wasnt too active in the discord, it was also interview season, then came shell...

Shell 2025

shell hacks was the first hack i ever went too, i went with adan and some of his friends and we made some shitty chrome extension, i knew knight hacks was coming up so i focused more on just understanding what the hell a hackathon really is and what i can take into knight hacks. When your stuck in a room for 3 days with no sleep with all of knight hacks you get more accustomed to them naturally. some of the people i remember are arthur, he came up and asked us what were doing because hes friends wiht adan. I also explicitly remember leo coming up to me at like 3am saturday asking me what were doing.. everything was broken at that point (still got a demo out tho) and i was just like bro leave me ALONE.

the first kickback

when i think about everything that happened and how i got treasurer, i think this is where i really first started to shine LOL. im not gonna get into specifics for EVERYONEs sake but lets just say it was a great time at the pool and bbq and me and the past board got into a good chat about some KH lore. carlos didnt find it to appeasing though apparently as he fell asleep midway...

Knight Hacks 8

there is literally a whole other page worth of words if you want the details, but i think some smaller stuff that happened was randomly helping mark, one of the sponsors and ex-kh, he was cool and we talked abit while helping him, also being the only non-team person to actually talk to the pheratech people in their private lunch meant for talking to them.. i was so surprised watching everyone just like sit on the ends of the tables and keeping to themselves while theres 7 people who run a startup your competitng for sitting there chilling, these are also like some of the most approachable people ive ever met. blah blah blah though i won knight hacks 8 super champion i already went over that

pre and post kickback 2

the win at knight hacks 8 was a big help as after i was alot more intune with the club, i couldve done it differently but honestly im just not a big talker in discords, kickback 2 was chill just alot more people knew me and i knew them now after being pretty active in the club since august

the banquet

i remember like early december right before finals i was telling carlos i was gonna run for treasurer, adrian was extremely on board with the idea and they were running together. honestly i got maybe alittle too confident, or maybe just the right amount as i like to say. I said i was going to start my propaganda campaign after finals and i did.. NOT do that at all, something i do want to note though is that after KH8 they threw a KH banquet for all members apart of the actual KH team, this was late november i think? Carlos calls me panicking about food or something and i actually didnt end up needed to pick up the food, but i did end up just sneaking into the banquet for free. who cares its just jason... I actually remember leaving the banquet and i walk up to brian who was making it very well known hes running for treasurer, dudes always so professional hes like shaking my hand i ask if hes running (i knew) and hes like yea can i count on you for my vote? sorry bro i told him i might be running who knows..

pre Elections

yea so i spent my whole christmas break absolutely chillin, so what.. no propoganda, most in the election room barely even knew me. but i knew i had the experience and whoever i was going to run against i knew i would beat them one on one no externals. so odds were in my favor. what i did expect was bryans amazing campaign efforts, i knew he was going to have a group showing out, so i just needed to beat him and the rest of the votes are still in my favor in that case. i actually came in last for primaries, i had some backing from the board but not too much. even carlos was like man i dont want to vote you i might vote someone else.. honestly tho, i was not worried at all walking in

Election day

so yea there was actually like 5 people running for treasurer, nat now secretary, dhruv, nicole, bryan, and me. Odds may be stacked but the house never reveals the actual line. my responses were great, i wont lie, i used jargon and big numbers so that the current treasurer adrian would react, not rigged he didnt know i was gonna do that, and when all the other people saw the guy they call the money guy react all crazy i knew it was gonna be easy. it ended up in a perfect tie against me and bryan but i know that my responses were better as i had more natural on the spot voting, so i felt extremely confident when they announced there was a tie.

Post Election

long story short, im the treasurer now. awesome... if anyone reading this has their named mention, you guys are all cool. i am just competitive, my bad... long live knight hacks