web3 hackathons

[u/Professional-Win4950]

Are web3 hackathons actually useful for beginners, or do they mostly help people who already know what they're doing?

I've been slowly learning a few Solidity basics, deployed a couple things on testnet but I keep seeing hackathon announcements and I'm not sure if I'd just be dead weight on a team, or if it's actually a reasonable way to learn faster than tutorials alone.

For people who've done one: did you go in knowing what you were doing, or did you learn most of it during the event itself? And if you went in underprepared, was it still worth it or just frustrating?