RC comes to an end

What actually happened part 2

Sept 23 - Oct 15

  • A lot of interviews - interviewed with 7 companies out of the 12 I applied to, reaching various stages of their processes. Some of the take home assignments took up a lot of time but were fun. Along with doing these came still more of the leetcode/algorithm design manual stuff.

Sept 23 - Nov 5

Sept 26 - Oct 11

  • I worked through the first 2 chapters of SICP, this was a lot more time consuming than I thought but also really valuable and has definitely changed the way I think about programming.

General

  • Held a number of crypto study group sessions where we went over IPFS, Ouroboros, Plasma and zkSnarks.
Random memorable experiences
  • That time an impromptu 2-hour Group theory lesson broke out in the afternoon with Rai and Aaron
  • The halloween party where Max B showed off his free liner project, a tool for building dynamic light show patterns
  • Playing the chess-like game which had upgradeable pieces that Natalie made on her launchpad
  • Attended a wide variety of awesome talks: Olga on weaving technology, Kat’s Streaming Into the Void project, Gretchen on bioinformatics, Aaron W on hamming codes, Kao’s attempt at an original proof of the James-Stein estimator, Aaron S on algorithm shading, Chris on CRDTs, Felix’s type theory project “type zoo”, Josh’s PANE project, Charlie’s PICO8 stuff and the list goes on…
Thoughts
  • I think its interesting how near the end of it I sort of craved external deadlines, tests or otherwise concrete measures of completion. I also started retreating to more structured learning like university course materials. Its probably easier to learn/work on projects in a “free-style” manner if you are already sort of specialized and you really understand the tools and the design space you are working in. The fact that I was really exploring the technical developments in the blockchain space for the first time meant that the most value for me was more like introductory/university class like materials.
  • I definitely did notice that when I had a deadline like an on-site interview or a Thursday presentation how a mass increase in productivity was spurred. I think prior to coming to RC I underestimated the value of an external deadline. One piece of advice for future RCers is to totally sign up for the presentations as a way to set a deadline for yourself!
  • Definitely came out of RC inspired by peoples patience when learning new material. There were quite a few folks who I was impressed with how they picked a topic, fully committed to it, then steadily worked through the problems in a textbook slowly building a way deeper understanding than you normally get by stackoverflowing/googling as part of a normal software job.
Written on November 6, 2018