Tomorrow I start six weeks at the Recurse Center (RC), a self-directed program for people who want to dramatically improve their programming skills. I am starting with a winter “batch”: 30 of us who will share a space in Brooklyn and learn, collaborate, and, at times, code together. Even after my batch I will have access to a diverse alumni network across the world. This is why RC has been described as “the world’s best programming community with a three-month onboarding process in New York”.
At my last job, our CTO kicked off biannual hackathons by posing the question, “what would you do if you weren’t afraid?” What emerged were incredible ideas brought to life, and others still impressive in failure: something from nothing. I see RC having a similar spirit. All those times I told myself “I don’t do front-end”; what if I did? When I had an idea involving hardware, why not learn and built it myself? What if I had time to fix that bug in pandas? To learn a better framework? Or create a new one?
It is not surprising to learn that RC participants produce a wide array of software and hardware, with varying degrees of whimsy, practicality, and beauty. This is what happens when you attract people who crave self-directed environments and have an independent sense of value.
I am grateful that Recurse is free for me; it makes its money by matching participants with jobs after their batch, and then receiving a recruiting finder’s fee from the hiring company. While there is no pressure from the program to find a job, this is where reality steps in for me.
Over the next six weeks, I will be challenged to set aside my fear and build with conviction. I will also be challenged to demonstrate that doing so was worth it.