Welcome back to Jeremi and Luca’s Newsletter, an update every Sunday from two friends connected by a relentless desire to learn.
Luca: Adventure
Eight weeks in and three weeks left in NYC.
Last weekend, for the Fourth of July, I visited my girlfriend at her home in Chicago. She went to the same high school as my grandmother, so it was cool to see that and also visit my dad’s childhood home (the current owners graciously toured us around).
And this weekend, my mom and little sister are visiting New York! Lots of Broadway shows, tours, museums, etc… I saved all the touristy stuff for them, so I’m finally seeing (for example) the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building.
Next weekend, the startup is doing an off-site in Mexico, which I’m sure will be a lot of fun. I’ve really been enjoying the group of people I’m working with this summer and am glad we’ve found the time to be social as well.
The following weekend, I’m hoping to visit my childhood summer camp in Maine with New York intern friends who also grew up going there.
My role at the startup ends on July 31. I fly home to SFO that evening, then to Rome the following afternoon. I’ll be in Rome for two days with Emmett, a friend I met at the DC tech policy conference in April.
From Rome to Romania where I’ll meet Caroline to teach English to school children for a week; she wants to be an elementary school teacher and loves volunteering abroad, so I’m excited to join her for this one. Then we head to Sicily to meet my mom and little sister, starting in Palermo and ending in Catania.
I’m home on August 17, but turning around the next day for a three-day backpacking trip in the Sierras with Jeremi and Jacob. They’ll head home from there, but I’ll stay up for three more days of backpacking/adventure with my dad.
Home on August 25, school starts on August 27.
I’m hugely grateful for what has been and will be such a fulfilling summer. It’s had everything I could have wanted: great people, fun adventures, tons of opportunities to be learning and challenged, planes, travel, and more.
And I feel happy about how I’ve used my time—but want to make sure I continue to feel that way through to the end. So some questions for anyone reading this:
– Ideas on how to make the most of my final weeks in New York (people/events)?
– Rome, Romania (Transylvania), Sicily (Palermo/Catania) tips?
– Any favorite backpacking trips in Northern California? (We haven’t decided yet)
Jeremi: Feedback loops
This week marks halfway through my time at the hacker house in Berkeley. I’m on vacation in France for 10 days. I had 25 days at the hacker house before this vacation, and I’ll have 25 days at the hacker house afterwards.
So, I thought this was as good time as ever to do a mid-mortem reflection on my summer thus far.
While I started the summer very focused on networking and going to events, this faded in the last few weeks. This is because I gained more momentum on my research project, and was drawn to spend more time focusing on that rather than on meeting people.
There’s a balance to strike between trying to find new opportunities and actually doing the work that will prepare me for those opportunities.
But I do want to be intentional about making the most out of Berkeley and the opportunities that are uniquely available while I’m living there. Something to recalibrate on in the second half.
As for the projects I’m working on, what was a mix of different ideas and projects has narrowed and solidified to my main research project. With free time, I’ve been able to gain momentum, and I’m starting to get really excited about it. I’ve been coming up with new experiments I want to run and new questions I want to ask.
One interesting thing I noticed though, related to these projects, is my lack of a good feedback loop.
I wrote a few weeks ago about wanting to become useful. I have an idea of how these projects help me with that goal, and I have an idea of how to approach these projects with that goal in mind.
Still, it’s nice to get an outside opinion from people who are specifically experienced with this sort of work and where I’m trying to go.
Oftentimes when I have meetings with people I’d call mentors, it’s tough to really draw out good advice. This is not to say these people are bad at giving it. More, it’s difficult for me to give the necessary context in a way that makes sense, and so I end up having higher level conversations.
That’s fine—I enjoy those higher level conversations!
Last week, I had a conversation with someone that does multi-modal research in AI. That is, they are very familiar with the sorts of technology I’m trying to learn and become good at. It felt nice to be able to really explain where I’m at, what I’m trying to do, and get their opinion on what parts of my strategy make sense and what don’t.
I’m not sure exactly how to get more and faster feedback loops. But I certainly appreciated this one. Something for me to think about during these next 10 days before jumping back into the summer.
Please enjoy your summer breaks , Enjoy the free time. Be impulsive!!!