With an undergraduate population of a little over 3,200, USC Aiken has students with a vast array of political views which always has the opportunity to present some issues.

Samuel Boyd, USCA’s student body president, said he thinks the university’s community has put a lot of work into making it an environment where animosity is not the main form of communication.

“We’re not pressuring anyone to go one way or the other and we’re very open to the idea that you have your own ideas and not trying to force you one way,” Boyd said. “That’s, in my opinion, something that’s interwoven with the idea of higher education.”

Boyd said that he and the rest of the Student Government Association are working to make the student body more aware and that they all have the opportunity to vote. He also emphasized that there isn’t one main political view on campus.

“We have the individuals that are very passionate and unwilling to hear other people,” Boyd said. “But, as a general rule, I would say USC Aiken is kind of an outlier in higher education in the sense that there’s not one dominating view and people aren’t pushing that view on other people.”

Evan Jenkins, a senior at USC Aiken and the president of the political science club, agreed. He feels everyone can speak their mind and have discussions without backlash.

“I think as a freshman, it wasn’t like that for the whole campus,” Jenkins said. “But over four years, it has definitely gotten better about that.”

Amethyst Marroquin, a senior at USC Aiken and student coordinator at the Student Life Office of Diversity Initiatives, agreed with Jenkins.

“I think that over the past four years, students have learned how to communicate better about some things,” Marroquin said. “It went from ‘What should my response be?’ to a state of listening and trying to at least hear each other out.”

Jenkins brought up a recent campus event based around talking about political issues to people on the other side. The fact that the event was even held, Jenkins said, speaks to how open the campus is. He said the event maxed out on capacity.

“I think that event offered students some comfort that it’s possible for two people who disagree to not only coexist with one another but actively try to maintain social relationships,” Marroquin said. “That’s contrary to what we’re seeing in our personal relationships and on the news and things like that. I think that event offers students who need that advice or who need that reassurance that it’s okay to do this.”

Boyd said there was a debate watch party for the final presidential debate on Oct. 22 that was a bipartisan event.

“Respect was guaranteed because we said everybody be respectful,” Boyd said. “Everybody was able to listen. Even though people very clearly had different opinions on what was going on, there were no arguments, there was nothing breaking out. It was just like you have an opinion, I have an opinion.”

Jenkins also spoke about the watch party and said about 150 people showed up.

Asked about voting, Jenkins said he thinks it’s important because of the collective.

“Your specific vote, like your one vote, doesn’t change the whole outcome of an election but it’s more of like if a lot of people are thinking that way and they don’t vote, then who knows how many people are thinking that way?” Jenkins said. “That changes an entire election. It’s more of the collective. If this whole entire campus, no one voted, and they were all in Aiken or Edgefield County, that changes a lot of different things, whether thats for the right or the left side.”

Boyd said the SGA just wants everyone to get out and vote. He said they have been doing voter registration events to try and spread the word.

“Regardless of how the election goes, I think a lot of people are going to go out and vote from USC Aiken,” Boyd said.

Marroquin said she thinks politics is talked about frequently among student leaders and that higher education and college is the place to have those conversations.

“I think our university does a great job with encouraging students to think critically about issues,” Marroquin said. “Being an empathetic listener doesn’t excuse anyone’s behavior, but it gets down to the why. I think that among student leaders, we’re able to talk about politics because we’re empathetically listening. We’re not listening to argue or respond, but to listen and understand which I think this country could use more of.”

What Is the GitHub Student Developer Pack?

The GitHub Student Developer Pack is a program run by GitHub Education that gives verified students free access to a curated set of professional tools and services. It includes GitHub Pro (normally a paid tier) plus free or heavily discounted access to tools from GitHub’s partner ecosystem, covering everything from cloud hosting and CI/CD pipelines to domain names, IDEs, and design assets.

The program launched several years ago and has grown steadily. As of the August 2019 announcement that prompted this article, 21 new partners had joined the pack, bringing the total partner count to over 35 and raising GitHub’s stated savings figure to approximately $45,000 USD in combined tool value over the course of a student’s enrollment.

Who Is Eligible?

Any student aged 13 or older who is currently enrolled at an accredited educational institution can apply. GitHub accepts the following as proof of enrollment:

• A school-issued email address (e.g., a .edu domain)
• A valid student ID
• Other official documentation of current academic enrollment

Applications are reviewed by GitHub. Once approved, access is typically granted for the duration of your studies and must be renewed periodically.

What Tools Are Included?

The partner list spans a wide range of categories useful to developers, DevOps practitioners, and designers. The following tools were listed as part of the pack at the time of the August 2019 update. Note that partner availability changes over time — always check the official GitHub Student Developer Pack page for the current list.

Cloud Platforms & Hosting

• Microsoft Azure — Cloud services for building, managing, and deploying applications
• AWS Educate — Cloud compute, free training, and collaboration resources from Amazon Web Services
• DigitalOcean — Simple cloud hosting built for developers
• Heroku — Flexible platform-as-a-service for deploying and managing apps
• Netwise — Turnkey data centre services for hosting critical IT infrastructure

IDEs & Development Environments

• JetBrains — Professional desktop IDEs including IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, and more
• Gitpod — Online IDE integrated with GitHub for instant, browser-based workspaces
• Next.tech — Browser-based computing environments for hands-on learning

DevOps, Monitoring & CI/CD

• Travis CI — Continuous integration platform for open-source and private projects
• Datadog — Cloud-based infrastructure monitoring and observability
• Sentry — Real-time error reporting and crash monitoring for applications
• LogDNA — Log management and aggregation platform
• Better Code Hub — Online source code analysis and quality assessment service

Domain Names & Web Infrastructure

• Namecheap — Affordable domain registration, hosting, and management
• Name.com — Domain name registrar and web host
• .TECH Domains — Domain registration for tech startups, businesses, events, and communities

APIs & Developer Services

• Stripe — Web and mobile payment APIs built for developers
• Algolia — Hosted search API with support for frontend and backend frameworks
• Sendgrid — Cloud-based email delivery platform
• TransloadIt — File uploading and media processing service
• PushBots — Scalable push notification system for mobile applications
• ConfigCat — Feature flag and configuration management service
• Cryptolens — Cloud-based software licensing platform

Git Clients & Project Management

• Axosoft (GitKraken) — Cross-platform Git GUI client and GitKraken Glo task boards with GitHub Issues sync
• Working Copy — Git client for iOS supporting cloning, editing, committing, and pushing
• Termius — SSH client for desktop and mobile devices

Learning & Courses

• Frontend Masters — In-depth JavaScript, Node.js, and front-end engineering courses
• Thinkful — Project-based courseware and mentoring to launch a developer career
• Flatiron School — Coding bootcamp focused on launching developers into the industry
• SymfonyCasts — Symfony and PHP video tutorials with code challenges

Localization & Data

• Transifex — Localization platform with codebase integration
• Phrase — Cloud-based localization and translation management
• Carto — Spatial data analysis, visualization, and mapping application platform

Design & Productivity

• Icons8 — Design resources including icons, UI illustrations, and photos
• Bootstrap Studio — Desktop application for building responsive websites using the Bootstrap framework
• PomoDone — Pomodoro-based time-tracking app to improve focus and reduce burnout
• SQL Smash — Productivity plugin for SQL Server Management Studio

Why This Matters for Student Developers

The practical value of the pack extends beyond cost savings. Having access to production-grade tools — real CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure, professional IDEs, and monitoring systems — lets students build and deploy projects that reflect actual industry workflows. This hands-on experience is significantly more valuable on a résumé or portfolio than toy projects built in isolated learning environments.

For DevOps and platform engineering students in particular, free access to tools like Travis CI, Datadog, Sentry, AWS Educate, Azure, DigitalOcean, and Heroku means you can practice the full software delivery lifecycle — build, test, deploy, monitor, and iterate — without spending a cent.

How to Apply

To apply for the GitHub Student Developer Pack:

1. Sign in to your GitHub account (or create one if you don’t have one).
2. Visit education.github.com/pack.
3. Click Get your pack and follow the verification steps.
4. Submit proof of enrollment — school email, student ID, or equivalent documentation.
5. Wait for GitHub’s review, which typically takes a short time but may vary.

Once approved, you can access each partner offer directly from the pack dashboard. Individual partner offers have their own redemption steps, but most are straightforward — often a promo code or an OAuth connection to your GitHub account.

Keep an Eye on the Current Partner List

The partner list in this article reflects the state of the pack as of August 2019. GitHub regularly adds and removes partners, updates offer terms, and adjusts credit amounts. Before applying for any specific tool, verify current availability and offer details on the official GitHub Student Developer Pack page. The $45,000 savings figure cited by GitHub is also a combined, theoretical maximum across all offers — actual value depends on which tools you use and for how long.

What Is the GitHub Student Developer Pack?

The GitHub Student Developer Pack is a program offered by GitHub to verified students at accredited educational institutions. At its core, it provides:

• GitHub Pro at no cost for as long as you remain a student — giving you unlimited private repositories, advanced code review tools, and insights.
• Free access or deep discounts on tools from GitHub’s partner ecosystem, spanning cloud hosting, monitoring, CI/CD, IDEs, domain registration, and more.

GitHub periodically updates the partner list. The 2019 edition added 21 new partners, bringing the theoretical combined value of all benefits to approximately $45,000 — though in practice most students will take advantage of a targeted subset of the offers.

Why It Matters for DevOps and Developer Learners

Many of the tools in the pack are the same ones used by professional engineering teams every day. Getting hands-on access as a student means you can:

• Build and deploy real projects to cloud infrastructure (DigitalOcean, Heroku, Microsoft Azure, AWS Educate) without paying out of pocket.
• Set up continuous integration pipelines (Travis CI) on private repositories.
• Monitor application performance and infrastructure (Datadog) the way production teams do.
• Use professional IDEs (JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, and others) rather than free-tier alternatives.
• Handle transactional payments in test and live environments (Stripe) to understand commerce integrations.
• Track errors in your deployed apps (Sentry) and learn incident response practices early.

Partner Tools Included in the Pack

The following tools were listed as part of the GitHub Student Developer Pack at the time of the 2019 announcement. Partners and benefit details change over time, so always verify current offers on the official GitHub Education page.

Cloud Infrastructure & Hosting

• Microsoft Azure — Cloud services for building, managing, and deploying applications.
• DigitalOcean — Developer-focused cloud hosting with straightforward pricing.
• Heroku — Platform-as-a-service for deploying and managing web applications.
• AWS Educate — AWS cloud training, credits, and collaboration resources for students.
• Netwise — Turnkey data centre colocation and managed hosting services.

CI/CD & Code Quality

• Travis CI — Continuous integration platform supporting both open source and private projects.
• Better Code Hub — Automated source code analysis that scores your codebase against maintainability guidelines.
• Sentry — Real-time error tracking and crash reporting for applications.

Monitoring & Logging

• Datadog — Cloud-based infrastructure and application performance monitoring.
• LogDNA — Centralised log management platform for aggregating and searching logs.

IDEs & Development Environments

• JetBrains — Professional cross-platform IDEs including IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, and more.
• Gitpod — Browser-based IDE with full GitHub integration for instant, reproducible dev environments.
• Next.tech — Browser-based computing environments for coding without local setup.

Git Clients & Workflow Tools

• Axosoft (GitKraken) — Cross-platform Git GUI client and GitKraken Glo boards for task tracking synced with GitHub Issues.
• Working Copy — Full-featured Git client for iOS: clone, edit, commit, push, and more.
• Termius — SSH client for desktop and mobile, useful for managing remote servers.
• SQL Smash — Productivity plugin for SQL Server Management Studio.

APIs & Back-End Services

• Stripe — Payment processing APIs built for developers, covering web and mobile.
• Algolia — Hosted search API with front-end and back-end framework support.
• SendGrid — Cloud-based transactional and marketing email delivery platform.
• TransloadIt — File uploading, encoding, and processing service.
• PushBots — Scalable push notification system for mobile applications.
• ConfigCat — Feature flag and configuration management service.
• Cryptolens — Cloud-based software licensing platform.

Domain Names & Web

• Namecheap — Affordable domain registration and hosting.
• Name.com — Domain registration and web hosting.
• .TECH Domains — .tech TLD for startups, communities, and tech projects.

Localization & Internationalization

• Transifex — Localization platform that integrates with your code repository.
• Phrase — Cloud-based localization and translation management.

Design & Front-End

• Bootstrap Studio — Desktop application for building responsive websites with the Bootstrap framework.
• Icons8 — Design resources: icons, UI illustrations, stock photos, and more.
• Frontend Masters — In-depth video courses on JavaScript, Node.js, and front-end engineering.

Data & Analytics

• Carto — Platform for spatial data analysis, visualization, and location-based application development.

Learning & Courses

• Flatiron School — Coding bootcamp curriculum for aspiring developers.
• Thinkful — Mentored online courseware for launching a developer career.
• SymfonyCasts — Symfony and PHP video tutorials with code challenges.

Productivity

• PomoDone — Pomodoro-based time-tracking app designed to improve focus and reduce burnout.

How to Apply

To claim the Student Developer Pack you need a verified student status. GitHub typically accepts one or more of the following as proof:

• A school-issued email address (e.g., a .edu address).
• A photo of a dated student ID or enrolment document.

Once verified, benefits are accessible through the GitHub Education portal. Individual partner offers may require you to connect your GitHub account or create a separate account with that partner.

Key Takeaways

• The GitHub Student Developer Pack provides GitHub Pro for free during enrolment.
• Partner benefits cover the full DevOps and development stack: cloud hosting, CI/CD, monitoring, IDEs, APIs, and more.
• The combined advertised value of all benefits was approximately $45,000 as of the 2019 announcement — partners and amounts change over time.
• Applying requires proof of student status through the GitHub Education portal.
• The pack is an excellent opportunity to gain practical experience with the same tools used by professional engineering teams.

Original coverage sourced from Lifehacker. For the current list of partners and up-to-date benefit details, visit the official GitHub Student Developer Pack page.

Most applicants verify their status with a school-issued email address. But what if your school doesn’t provide student email addresses or physical student IDs? This guide explains the full range of accepted documentation and walks through the application process step by step.

Who Is Eligible?

The Pack is open to any student who meets all of the following criteria:

• You are 13 years of age or older.
• You are currently enrolled in a degree-granting program.
• Your institution is not restricted by accreditation limitations that exclude it from the programme.

There are no geographic restrictions — students anywhere in the world can apply.

What Documentation Is Accepted?

GitHub accepts several forms of proof, listed roughly in order of how quickly they are processed:

1. School-Issued Email Address (Fastest)

A verified school email address is the preferred method. Once GitHub confirms that the email domain belongs to a qualifying institution and that the school restricts those addresses to currently enrolled students (not applicants or alumni), applications using that domain are approved quickly — sometimes within minutes.

Two important caveats:

• The address must be verified in your GitHub account settings before it will appear in the application form.
• Email addresses that contain a plus sign (+) are not accepted as an anti-fraud measure.

Even with a valid school email, GitHub may still ask for supplementary documentation if the domain has shown unusual usage patterns or if the school also issues addresses to non-students.

2. Dated Student ID

A physical or digital student ID that includes a visible expiry or issue date is accepted when a school email is unavailable or insufficient. The document must clearly show that your enrollment is current.

3. Alternative Documentation

If your school provides neither a student email address nor a student ID, GitHub accepts a range of alternative documents as long as they clearly demonstrate current enrollment. Accepted examples include:

• Current (dated) academic transcript
• Official letter on school letterhead confirming active enrollment, signed and dated
• A time-stamped screenshot of your school’s student portal showing your current registration
• Current course registration confirmation document

Documents in languages other than English are accepted, but may take longer to review due to the translation step.

Important: A letter of acceptance is not valid. Acceptance to a school does not prove that you actually enrolled or are currently attending.

How to Apply: Step-by-Step

1. Go to GitHub Education and click Get benefits.
2. Under “Which best describes your academic status?”, select Student.
3. Choose your verification method:
   • If you have a school-issued email: Select it from the dropdown (or add and verify it first in your GitHub account settings). Avoid using plus-sign variants of the address.
   • If you only have a personal email: Follow the additional prompts. A personal Gmail or similar address is acceptable as long as you upload supporting documentation.
4. When prompted, upload an image of your supporting document. Make sure the image is:
   • Clearly legible — blurry uploads are a common rejection reason.
   • Visibly dated — undated documents are routinely rejected.
   • Showing your name and institution.
5. Enter your school’s name, describe how you plan to use GitHub, then click Submit.

How Long Does Review Take?

Review times vary depending on the verification method:

• Trusted school email domain: Can be approved in minutes.
• Uploaded documentation: Typically reviewed within two weeks of submission.
• High-volume periods (e.g., start of a new academic semester): Reviews may take longer than usual.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

My school email isn’t showing up in the application

You must verify the email address in your GitHub account settings before it will appear in the Student Developer Pack application. After verifying, refresh the application page.

I submitted a school email but was still asked for extra proof

GitHub requires that a school email domain be issued exclusively to currently enrolled students. If the school also issues addresses to applicants, alumni, or staff, the email alone may not be sufficient. Upload a secondary document alongside it.

My application was rejected

Common reasons for rejection include:

• Uploaded image was blurry or unreadable.
• Document had no visible date.
• Document did not clearly show current enrollment status.

GitHub will usually provide context about what was missing. You can re-apply with improved documentation — GitHub evaluates all submitted proof collectively across attempts. Resubmitting the exact same documentation will produce the same outcome.

It’s summer and I’m between semesters or transferring schools

If you recently graduated or transferred, you can still apply using documentation from the school where you were most recently registered.

My institution doesn’t qualify

GitHub’s eligibility requires enrollment in a degree-granting program. If your institution doesn’t currently qualify, consider asking an instructor to apply for your school to become a GitHub Campus partner, which can open up eligibility for the whole institution.

Tips for a Successful Application

• Always verify your school email address in GitHub settings before starting the application.
• If uploading a document, photograph it in good lighting and ensure the date, your name, and your institution are all clearly visible.
• Do not submit a letter of acceptance — it will be rejected.
• Do not resubmit identical documentation after a rejection; provide something new or supplementary.
• If your document is not in English, allow extra review time for translation.

Original source: github.blog