RC Reflections
Wow, it’s hard to believe that my time at Recurse Center has come to an end (for now). Recurse Center is a self-directed educational retreat for programmers, normally based in NYC, but currently being run remotely.
While at times it felt I wasn’t as productive as I’d like to be, when I think back to where I was a progammer at the beginning of batch, I’ve made tremendous progress! I started to learn programming at the beginning of the pandemic because I wanted to redo my portfolio site - look at me now!
I am so happy and thankful to have the opportunity to be part of a community of wonderful, creative and welcoming programmers. Never graduate!
A Somewhat Complete List of everything I learned + worked on while at RC:
Back end web development:
- Node JS
- Express JS
- Data persistence using MongoDB + Mongoose
- Authentication using Passport.js
Data Visualizations:
- Making data visualizations without using a library
- Making data visualizations using D3.js
Implementing Data Structures and Algorithms (using Khan Academy, Grokking Algorithms + this udemy course)
- Data Structures:
- Linked lists (Doubly + Singly)
- Binary Search Trees
- Binary Heaps
- Graphs (undirected vs directed, weighted vs unweighted)
- Algorithms:
- Recursion!
- Asymptotic/Big O Notation
- Binary Search
- BFS + DFS
- Merge sort, quick sort, insertion sort, selection sort
- Data Structures:
Projects:
- Prompt generator
- Speculative authentication:
- Color
- Pixel Art
- Data Viz:
- Mediation timer
- Post-it website
- Feelings Checker
- Generative art sketches
- CampList
- TestMe (node based testing framework)
- This blog! (Used Hugo static blog generator)
Research
Authentication + security + all that jazz
- Understanding Bcrypt
- Cryptography with Khan Academy
- HTTPS + web security
- pwn.college + more cybersecurity learning
- peeked at Mr. Robot Netflix + Hack but felt a bit overwhelmed
Some other links + things I found useful:
- JavaScript:
- Learning web dev:
- Interview prep/problem sets: