I would like to briefly talk about Nick's answer, and my answer still remains the same.
Nick confused hacking with penetration testing.
"Hacking is not necessarily illegal. It is actually a legitimate skill used to detect security flaws in software. If you can't find them you can't patch them..."
Nick mentioned about knowing two programming languages Python, and C.
"That being said I would suggest you learn python first and possibly even C. Get a good understanding of it before moving on to penetration testing."
You don't have to learn Python, or C before moving to penetration testing.
My answer:
What you have on your mind is not smart, and it's far from being smart.
No! You don't need to become a hacker. You want to become a hacker, and the option you're taking is not smart.
To become a hacker, you need an education, and the ability to properly teach yourself.
I don't know why you think you will be able to learn how to hack.
Not everyone can become a hacker.
Hacking is not easy to do, and it's a difficult skill to acquire, and master.
Hypothetically speaking if I asked you what's the difference between a white box, and a black box, would you know how to answer my question? The answer is no.