For a few years, I've thought that attending the Recurse Center could be a great thing to do.

Now I'm reading this story, and the story itself destroyed about 50% of my interest in the Recurse Center.

I'd expect an institution like the Recurse Center to be able to see what happened here, make a graceful accommodation in this instance, and try to improve it in the future. This story is about a systems-level failure, not an individual-level failure.

So, RC acting as if this is an individual-level failure is extremely off-putting to me.

I don't think I have an unreasonable take on the situation. So now this /u/rcthrowaway account shows up... and it's odd to me.

If it represents Recurse Center, I'm baffled at how tone-deaf the account is, and it's _rapidly_ destroying the other 50% of my interest in RC.

If I found out, conclusively, that this anonymous account speaks for RC, I will never again consider attending RC.

Which makes me think - how might I speak, if _I_ created an anonymous account, and wanted to destroy the reputation of an institution? I'd say exactly the kinds of things that the anonymous account is saying.

So it's either 1) tonedeaf and revealing of deep institutional ill-health, or 2) a false-flag operation trying to attack the Recurse Center.

If option 2 is true, my interest and curiosity is sparked, and maybe I _would_ attend RC.

I'm in the middle of a long sabbatical from work. I could do it right now if I wanted to, but this story strikes it completely from my list.

If you're out there and reading this, Recurse Center, I would recommend adopting a perspective that your side of this story looks _really bad_.

Edit: Spelling. For years I thought it was the "Recourse" center, not "Recurse" center. TIL!

I am sorry my tone came off as tone-deaf. I'm neither a secret RC plant or a false-flag on them...I'm somebody who uprooted their life for 3 months and traveled thousands of miles and left behind all of my friends to attend an amazing program.

Please understand my perspective then that I might be less than kind in my opinions on somebody who missed an online meeting (basically the only one actually asked for by RC!) from the comfort of their home and then saw fit to complain about it in a blog post.

The entitlement is what set me off.

Is "recourse center" a typo or a play on words?

Hah. I wish it were a play on words, but alas, just a long-lived misunderstanding in my own head. I fixed the spelling, thanks for pointing it out.

Recurse

At face value, their attempts to defend the Recurse Center are largely backfiring. It makes the Recurse Center seem harsher and stricter than even a traditional university course. And references to it being a "scene" makes me think that the "scene" feels really pretentious and exclusive rather than inclusive.

Poor wording on my part. NYC is full of different scenes/social circles, clubs, programs, so on and so forth. There is a flakiness (in my opinion) that often accompanies people that try out lots of different things.

For a program like RC, having people join and drop out or decide to only show up for a few days a week or whatever directly cheapens the experience for others and damages the community and serendipity and mood that arises when you have a bunch of smart, dedicated, and focused people there.

My belief (and I emphatically am not staff, just an alum with opinions) is that they want to make absolutely sure people are committed. They also want to make absolutely sure everybody is getting the same start.

Doesn't seem that odd? They're not claiming to speak officially for them, and could easily be an alumni etc that wants to present "the other side" but not tie it to their main identity.

People make throwaway accounts for lots of reasons, and some of those are perfectly legit.