HN

Comments (29)

• ThePhysicist
  Congrats Sonali, Nick, Dave & everyone else! I had an incredible time with you all in NY more than 10 years ago, it was so cool, and I'm still thinking of it very fondly. Spent my days hacking away in the space near Canal Street and the nights and weekends exploring NYC with other Recursers, visiting museums, parks and venturing out to buy cheap dumplings by the dozen. I was quite poor back then but I enjoyed my life so much, had a tiny room at the Kolping house on the Upper East Side which was very run down and tiny but also very cheap, basically just went there for sleeping and spent every other minute in the space and outside. No distractions, no possessions beyond my laptop, no responsibilities, simple but happy times. And then in 2021 I found my dream job at DuckDuckGo through RC, been working there for almost five years now! Thanks for everything and great to see it's still going strong!
• atherton94027
  Congrats! I'd be curious to hear what changed (and what didn't) with applicants over the last 15 years.I feel like the programming community is very different than in the early 2010s – when's the last time you've seen a coworker brag about using vim – but I can't really put my finger on what changed exactly.
• Menu

  flockonus
  At first i found odd that pricing is nowhere in the website, but then i found it burried under FAQ (free!) - is it to weed out people who are focusing on free rather than going deeper into the experience?> How much does attending the Recurse Center cost? > RC is free for everyone. You will never receive a bill from RC.> How can you afford to make RC free? > RC has a built in recruiting agency. Companies pay to hire RC alumni. This payment never comes out of your salary.
• tracerbulletx
  Hadn't heard of this before but its a cool idea. I often take my own little "programming retreats" and go to another city for a week and work out of a nice coworking space for a sense of focus and engagement with my work.
• Menu

  andrew_eu
  I like the definition of social rules [0]. I also wonder whether the roof rule was written preemptively or retrospectively -- I hope the former.I have my own thanks to give to HN. It's connected me to interesting people, online and IRL. It's led to some very strong friendships. It's led me to multiple job opportunities, and usually the better ones. It's changing of course, but I've had a great time in this community so far, and that deserves thanks.0: https://www.recurse.com/social-rules
• voidsnax
  While I'm still waiting for the right moment in my own life to do my own Recurse Center retreat, I have had the pleasure of hiring and working with several RC alums over the years and in every instance have found them to be high-quality developers and interesting people to boot. Big congrats to RC for 15 years!
• namanyayg
  Thanks for making Recurse so awesome Nick, and it was great running into you at demo day.I learned so much and made great friends at my six weeks in Brooklyn.Without Recurse Center I probably wouldn't have made it into YC with a startup of my own today. Long live RC!
• dgellow
  I had the chance to work with a bunch of Recurse alumni over the past 4 years, they have all been amazing, brilliant engineers and overall great people :)
• zallarak
  You guys changed many lives including my own.
• shepherdjerred
  Ah! I so wanted to go to the recurse center when I was between jobs, but I was too nervous to push my start date back a significant amount. I really hope I can do it one day. It sounds so awesome!
• Menu

  NetOpWibby
  I wish something like Recurse existed in Cupertino, I've always admired the program. Congrats on this milestone, most HN alumni don't make it past a decade.
• saulpw
  RC is a great community and I will be forever grateful to them for introducing me to several good friends that are still in my life 10 years later.
• pm90
  Some of the best engineers I worked at got their start in programming at the recurse center... thank you for the good you've done in this world!
• kuanbutts
  Thanks RC! I went back when it was Hacker School! Grateful that period of my life - grew so much!
• joao
  Congratulations! From time to time I visit your website and consider applying when between jobs but never did. Might try this year :)
• Menu

  guessmyname
  I attended a Recurse Center batch, and while I understand that others had amazing experiences, mine was quite bland.I can't blame anyone but myself for this.Most of the other attendees were intelligent or highly self-motivated, or both. Many people seemed to connect instantly, forming small work groups, sharing project ideas, and even going out for lunch or dinner together. They were constantly talking about how awesome Zulip was (is?) [*] and engaged in a constant stick-measuring contest to see whose weekly project would make it to Hacker News’ top 30. At times, it felt like I had joined some sort of mini-cult. I know it wasn’t like that at all; it was just the visuals from an outsider in a completely different culture. As far as I can remember, people were very friendly, willing to help others whenever they were stuck, and happy to study and tackle challenging problems together. There were lots of learnings floating around the working space. Sadly, it didn’t work for me at all, and years later, I still don’t know why exactly.Perhaps it was the fast pace of New York City and SoHo itself? Or the rudeness of passersby, especially the police officers who couldn’t be bothered even if I just wanted to ask for directions? Or the dirtiness of the streets? The constant noise from cars honking all the time? The strange people in the Subway? The ubiquitous unhealthy food at every corner? Healthy food was difficult to find, at least for someone new to the city, and when accessible, it was unaffordable. Multiple times, I found myself working in the Recurse Center workspace with an empty stomach, which obviously exacerbated the bad experiences, but I can’t even complain about that because they often had free pizza (once, twice a week?) but obviously, pizza is unhealthy, so I never accepted.Overall, I had a very bad experience, but I believe nothing was Recurse Center’s fault; it was mine. I’m not entirely sure what I expected when I joined, but I hope this serves as a warning to future attendees to prepare themselves before joining, especially if you are not familiar with American culture, and particularly with New York.[*] https://zulip.com (years later, I still don’t understand why people love Zulip so much)
• jdorfman
  HN wouldn’t be HN without Dang. Thank you Dang.
• thierrydamiba
  Awesome story, thanks for sharing!
• Uptrenda
  Never heard of recurse before but what a charming idea. Seems like you've found something amazing to do in life. Wholesome posts like OP are much welcome in tech. Updooted.
• j45
  Congrats, helping people improve their lives and for their loved ones has its own return.
• anon
  undefined
• shalom1112
  [dead]