I loved my time at recurse and also had some similar experiences to you. There were cliques and social dynamics that I didn’t fully understand or didn’t want to be involved in, but that’s genuinely normal for me. I’ll go out on a limb and say that’s normal for many people in the tech industry. There were also people genuinely interested in making connections and drawing others into groups, and I haven’t experienced that in other tech spaces.

New York was overwhelming and different than my usual life, and sometimes that felt amazing and sometimes it was hard. Knowing that it was temporary let me enjoy the good parts and not worry too much about the hard parts.

I hate zulip and find it incredibly unintuitive. It’s a real shame to me that it’s the best way to engage with the recurse community, because once my batch was over I haven’t been as involved.

A lot of the program is what you make of it- it’s self directed, and you won’t magically become a different person just by walking through the doors. I do really appreciate all the work that the recurse team puts into setting people up for success, both through the interview process and the light structure they provide.