The 1st anniversay of my blog

Actually, it's about my experience applying for the GitHub Student Developer Pack.

The Beginning

Recently, Copilot ended its beta and started charging, with ads even appearing on GitHub's homepage. I learned from yyx that if you pass GitHub's student verification, you can get Copilot for free with a $10 monthly credit. Besides that, other useful products in the Student Pack for me include Terminus and Educative, which were more than enough to get me interested. He mentioned that he only applied twice and got approved, making it seem straightforward, so I decided to give it a try.

The Process

I found a GitHub Student Pack application tutorial on Zhihu, turned off my proxy, and copied the hosts from GitHub520. I opened the application link, linked my student email, and wrote a few random sentences about why I wanted the Student Pack. Then GitHub asked me to provide proof of enrollment, so I translated my CHSI (China Higher Education Student Information) verification into English and uploaded it.

Everything went smoothly, right?

About half a minute later, I received an email saying my application was denied, with the reason: The item you uploaded is insufficient to demonstrate your current academic status. Modifications to your photo proof might have been detected by the system. Please see suggestions.

So I decided to take a photo of the CHSI verification with my phone, but it still got rejected for the exact same reason. How could a photo taken with a phone be modified? The automated review system was ridiculous. But what could I do? I had to keep trying. I attempted various combinations of my face, CHSI verification, student ID, photos, and file uploads—16 times in total—and got instantly rejected every time. My patience was completely worn out.

I started wondering whether yyx was just lucky or if I was extremely unlucky, so I asked my roommate to apply. He got approved on his second try.

I mimicked my roommate's approach and arranged my admission letter, student ID, and campus card, took a photo with my phone, and uploaded it as a file. This time, GitHub said, "Other applicants from your school have provided more credible materials. Please consider changing your materials," and wouldn't let me upload. Later, I realized that no matter what image I uploaded, I'd get this message—meaning I couldn't upload anything anymore!

With no other options, I created a new account and tried applying again. I took several photos and uploaded them multiple times, but still got the same instant rejection: The item you uploaded is insufficient to demonstrate your current academic status. Modifications to your photo proof might have been detected by the system. Please see suggestions. At that point, I felt like giving up—

The Turning Point

Frustrated, I decided to confront customer support. I spent 10 minutes carefully writing a ticket, only for it to be closed by a bot. Here's what I wrote:

Application not approved (student)

Description

I'm a student from China and I use credit from https://www.chsi.com.cn/ to prove my identity and get the student pack. Unfortunately, I've tried 8 times, and the bot always returns you uploaded is insufficient to demonstrate your current academic status and asks me to upload School issued photo ID with current enrollment date. However, my proof clearly shows my photo, school name, and my admission time. I've tried for several hours and I'm really confused. This is a screen shot. (Screenshot of CHSI verification) And this is a photo. (Photo taken with my phone) Could you please tell me the other reason besides the repetitive uploaded is insufficient?

I later added a pls to reopen the ticket, and this time it wasn't closed.

A few days later, I added another message:

Now I've tried 16 times, providing materials including my face, school curriculum, student ID card, and credit from . I believe that's enough to prove my identity.

On July 7th, GitHub finally replied:

Hello,

Thanks for contacting GitHub support.

Please reapply using your school issued email address;

https://education.github.com/discount_requests/student_application

If you can, let me know once that is done.

Kind regards, Topaz

I clicked the link and reapplied, uploading a photo of my admission letter, student ID, and campus card. About two minutes later, I was finally approved.

It was exhausting...

Usage

First, I tried Copilot. For OI (Olympiad in Informatics) C++ code, aside from long templates like balanced trees, tree dissection, FFT, and suffix arrays—which were quite different from what I remembered and took some getting used to—about 80% of the code wrote itself. For Java backend development, it was incredibly smooth; I'd write a comment, and several lines of code would pop up, often without needing any changes. For writing Python exploits (pwn exp), it sometimes got in the way of creative thinking (after all, creative work is hard to replace).

Then, the mobile version of Terminus has a nice UI and comes with code snippets. I plan to install it on my computer soon and say goodbye to Xshell.

As for Educative, I impulsively signed up for the 6-month free trial. But when I checked it out, most courses were about programming languages, front-end development, and machine learning—none of which I needed immediately, so I felt a bit regretful. To avoid wasting it, I shared the account with a high school classmate, which made me feel less guilty about the waste...

As for Azure, Name.com, and others, I'll check them out when I have a need for them in the future.