Reflections on completing my 1st week @ RC
1st week @ RC:
- Met a bunch of super interesting people and already have way too many ideas buzzing around in my head.
- Went to my first virtual board game event and it was honestly way more fun than I expected — laughed so much.
- Published my first blog post in forever — pretty big win for Week 1 since I usually procrastinate like crazy on writing anything up.
- Showed up for all the orientation stuff, figured out the social rules (especially the Not-To-Dos and how to apologize if I mess up — still trying to break the “well actually…” habit in personal life).
- Started using Cursor — jury’s still out, but so far I like it.
- Pair programmed twice — wild how much you pick up just watching how someone else uses their setup. Discovered Codeberg, people’s Vim workflows, Emacs tricks — it’s like peeking into other people’s kitchens while they're making their secret recipe.
- Coded “Mastermind” from scratch in Python — felt good to build something simple end-to-end.
- Went to a couple of non-coding sessions too — film theory and labyrinths. No clue what I was getting into, but they made me think in totally different ways.
- Did my first virtual check-in — a bit awkward but good to say stuff out loud.
- Loved the “how to build your volition muscles” workshop — gave me some good food for thought on sticking with my projects.
- Got through the first two chapters of AI Engineering by Chip Huyen. Good reminder that I still love reading textbooks, in small doses at least.
- Also coded up attention and transformers from scratch in PyTorch — felt nice to get my hands dirty instead of just reading about it.
- Watched the first CS336 lecture on LLMs from scratch. Hoping I stick with this one — I’ve dropped way too many online courses before.
- Getting the hang of Zulip. Still fumbling around with shortcuts and threads, but it’s clicking bit by bit.
"How to build your Volition Muscles" : Workshop Notes
Did the “Build Your Volition Muscles” workshop this week — we jotted down ideas, dug into the “why,” and sorted them by priority. Here’s where I landed for Week 1. Curious to see how these shift as I go.
P0: Stuff I should be moving on right now.
P1: Next up, ideally in the first half of RC.
P2: Later, for the second half — once the dust settles a bit.
| Idea | Why (Reasoning) | Priority Bucket |
|---|---|---|
| Complete UC-Berkeley LLM for agents course | I want to get solid at building actual agents, not just toy demos. | P1 |
| Complete CS-336 | Feels like a must-have if I want a deep grasp of LLM internals. | P0 |
| Finish AI Engineering by Chip Huyen | This has been on my list forever — time to finally dig in properly. | P0 |
| Complete zero-to-hero course | To fill in any gaps and see another perspective on LLMs. | P2 |
| Build Mastermind with a good front-end | I want to learn how to tie back-end and front-end together well. | P0 |
| Event website | Another shot at full-stack skills — plus it sounds fun. | P1 |
| Make a practical agent using what I learn | Just for the joy of making something that works in the real world. | P2 |
| Write weekly blog posts | I miss writing regularly — want to get back into the groove. | P0 + P1 + P2 |
| Take good notes & do mini presentations | Helps me process things and tackle my stage fright head-on. | P0 + P1 + P2 |
| Pair program as much as possible | Best way to learn — seeing other workflows is eye-opening. | P0 + P1 + P2 |
Curious which ones I’ll actually stick with — let’s see where Week 2 goes.