How I Found RC

I’d not heard of RC until I was browsing Hacker News one day and saw a link to an article which I read and enjoyed, 3D printing my laptop ergonomic setup. At the bottom of the article was a little link to ‘The Recurse Center’. I clicked through. I skimmed a bit. It seemed like an interesting place but I didn’t give it much more thought at the time. I am an internet user, I don’t hang around!

A few weeks later I was on HN again, reading another great article (Making niche solutions is the point) (NB I didn’t notice until writing this post that both of those articles were written by the same person, so thank you to Nicole!). This one was about how 3D printers have opened up new ways of thinking about the making process, and allow niche solutions which wouldn’t be realistic if we had to spin up assembly lines.

Again, I noticed a link to this Recurse place at the bottom of the article. This time I read a bit more, clicked around a little. There seemed to be a lot about this place that would suit me.

But I wasn’t sure if I was computer-sciency enough, as a self-taught coder. I wasn’t sure if I’d be a cultural fit, as a council estate chav from England. I didn’t apply. My negative thoughts got the better of me.

But I did bookmark the site.

A couple of evenings later I was going through some kind of thought process about my career/life situation, feeling like I wasn’t doing enough, wasn’t making any moves. I remembered that Recurse place I’d read about.

So I dug out the bookmark, and got to filling in my application. Why not?