RLOSFEST (Open Source)

I’ve been accepted to RLOS Fest. What’s RLOS Fest?

• It’s Microsoft Research’s Reinforcement Learning Open Source Fest. It means I’ll be contributing to an open source project this summer. I am excited. This is for several reasons; one is that without mentors giving me access to learn about Open Source, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Particularly as someone from a non-traditional background, it gives you a leg up. It gives you visibility, an opportunity to learn from mentors and maintainers, and to contribute to a large code base.
• Good mentorship in tech is really, really important. It can be the difference between someone being set up for success and having exponential growth, and not, and flunking out of tech, feeling depressed; like it was the worst decision of their life, even if they came in with joy and curiosity and love coding.
• I want others to be able to find these notes about my journey. Maybe you’ve been struggling to find that first gig. Maybe you’ve always been curious about it. Maybe someone told you you’d never be good at it. Forget them; if you love it, do it! There is room for all of us, and we need your perspective and insight, too.
• I’m going to document my journey during summer, so that it might be of use to someone. I’m still learning. After all, I started the game late, but I enjoy it, and I have the courage and humility to be okay with making mistakes and learning in this space. I’m a very flawed individual, as humans are, but I have a lot of curiosity and eagerness to learn. The Human sponge.

Also

• When I was looking a lot of this information up, it was limited. If it’s something you might be interested in going forward, I’d like someone to be able to search and find comprehensive information. And of course, I’m probably going to write another Medium post or something to that effect, of everything. From what I’ve seen, I think they even do video demos. But I want someone who wants to take advantage of this opportunity in the future to have as much information as they would need to make a decision, or to give it a shot.

I hope you’re as excited as I am!

• Tech for me and my journey into this world started with a few people who saw me curiously standing by, observing what they were doing and asking “what is that?”.
• They showed me a little bit by bit what the possibilities were, and I have forged my own path, full of ups and downs since then. There are days of ups and downs, and technology isn’t perfect. Humans aren’t perfect, and they make the technology, so you know it’s a hot mess all around. But opportunity; I’d like someone who wants that experience, that opportunity for themselves, even if they’re merely curious, to have that for themselves, too. Do you like making things? Do you like collaborating with others to make things? Maybe you’ll find some friends along the way, too, in this journey of ups and downs, and maybe you can build something together; something that lasts. Or maybe the relationships will last. Whether they do or not, don’t give up, be sure to have some fun along the way, find a network that supports and accepts you kindly as you are, and take care of yourself.

And that’s it