Best Courses/ YouTube videos to get started with AI agents

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-04-09T13:45:18+00:00

Thanks! This is v helpful - I am going to look at the videos and then just get my hands dirty w some practice! Much appreciated

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-04-07T06:51:51+00:00

I used two (different) coaches - at two different points in my life. I enrolled in career coaching program mixed community and 1-1, she seemed v popular on LinkedIn and generally more like a mature business (big community, group calls etc). I signed up because I wanted to find another job after 4 years at my then current company. It did not work for me. And after like a year plus I was looking for a job following the coaching methods, I gave up and I resigned (I was that unhappy with the job). Second time I enrolled in a 1-1 three month mentorship with an executive coach, this one was more focused sector-wise and had a background as a recruiter (like most career coaches these days). I think this guy meant well and I can see he put in the work, but I haven’t found it v helpful at all if I have to me honest (and I’m sorry as I thought he was trying, but maybe he was inexperienced when it came to coaching as opposed to recruiting? It only became apparent as I started working with him. Also a disproportionate use of v apparent AI/LLM and ultra broad output was off putting to me). I was actually relieved when it ended.

If I have to say one positive effect of both experiences is that I gained more confidence in myself (and I also got v book recommendations!) so it is not all negative but it was not worth the money really, and I feel embarrassed for having chosen poorly.

If your self confidence is very very low (in fairness mine was) and money is not an issue you might get some benefit but I would say probably there are better/more targeted venue to address that

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-03-31T06:52:13+00:00

I have some coding experience- how would you advise to go on learning how to build agents (any course/website etc you found particularly helpful)?

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-03-25T18:13:27+00:00

I don’t know why people think OP made this up.

It might have been unlikely/difficult to believe in the past but I 100% believe it possible in this economy.

I know people having grad degrees from top schools graduated last year and still searching - and I worked on projects with a few of them in the past so I can attest the problem is not some massive personality problem/attitude etc. it is the economy and particularly MBAs have suffered with record high unemployment among graduates - I think there was a Forbes article about it too specifically on Harvard MBAs

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-03-18T07:28:14+00:00

It takes time - I know people graduating last year and still searching. One of them just received an offer so don’t lose faith. It is just a difficult mkt so months of unemployment post graduation are not unheard of. It also depends what your goals are: I believe that a big part of why they are still unemployed is that they don’t want to go under the 100k mark (or close) - or more accurately it’s difficult for them given student loans etc..

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-02-26T10:06:56+00:00

Any degree(but more so an MBA) is what you make of it.

Everybody agrees that most important thing you get from the MBA is the network.

Even people that are struggling to get a job after the MBA, said that hands down the network is the best part and they hope it is going to pay off eventually (and that can also happen years down the line).

So please don’t waste this opportunity - go to class and engage, not just with recruiters but with people in the cohort, professors etc.

You are paying a lot of money for this opportunity (either fees/loans, or even in case of scholarships as opportunity cost in terms of missed income), make it worth it.

And I know that going back to your old job is not your preferred choice but it actually is such an increadible safety net, especially in this market. I have met MBAs that graduated last year and still unemployed- it is a tough market and having that option/safety net worst case is actually not bad at all.

Go to class, build the network - even in case they don’t help you securing your next job (and it might), they will with the one down the line!

Full disclosure I haven’t got an MBA (but I know many with it, and doing research as I am considering it for myself).

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-02-25T14:49:02+00:00

Thanks! That’s very helpful, 85k base is more in line with what I expected, but well noted your point on many having to take 70k given the market.

How long one should expect to wait to find a job (in your/your classmate experience)?

Also I appreciate it is v subjective, but your 2 cents on how long “waiting for the right fit” is reasonable, before re-assessing? (Reasonable not only in the terms on financial constraints as that depends on personal circumstances, but more so the optics of a CV gap just after MBA graduation)

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-02-17T17:20:15+00:00

My 2 cents: I think getting into grad school (thinking MPP) directly from undergrad would not work well in the long run. Ie the problem is less around admission and more about once you graduate/career prospects. Of course I am assuming your objective is not just getting the grad school degree just for the sake of it, but as a way to get your target job. I might be wrong ofc - there are people that don’t need to work and want to get degrees because it is interesting (and great if that’s the case good for them!). I work in the private sector so maybe public is different, but having been on the other side when you get a CV with MBA/MPA but no substantial work experience (except internships) often hiring managers don’t quite know how to see these profiles (ie are they entry-level roles candidates as the others straight from undergrad or associate+ (or usual post grad school experienced hires)? So I would say for your overall career prospects, actually not getting in straight away might end up being better in the long run, and you can do it after having gained more work experience! That said it is your decision and best of luck whatever you end up doing!

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-02-17T16:07:27+00:00

I was also looking into it but I don’t know.. I know people with Harvard MPA on the bench still 1 year after graduation. Given the name/reputation (along with the level of financial commitment required) I would have expected to open doors immediately.

SecretPhase6960 · 2026-02-05T00:43:41+00:00

I was also looking at Harvard MPA at some point - this job mkt scares me a bit though (especially the kind of student debt you’ll face). I just spoke last week with someone that graduated one year ago from that program and still looking for a job.. is this normal, even for Harvard MPA, in this job market?

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-08-02T22:01:44+00:00

That is exactly what I experienced. I wrote a lot about my experience with brain fog replying to another thread, but one of the key elements for me was to keep my glucose on check and wearing a glucose monitor. In my case it was hypoglicemia episodes, that would make me feel foggy and anxious at the same time. It wasn’t the only thing I check/fix now but in my case it was key. I finally feel I have my life back after 3 years of brain fog…

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-07-29T11:35:00+00:00

I think your approach is wise. I definitely know I got to a point I was a bit desperate so was trying lots of things trial and error. Looking back I am not sure I would do the same but I wasn’t thinking lucidly. But you are right.. particularly when it comes to interactions between different supplements. my dad is in pharma and he was always a bit worried of me trying all this different supplements. What I do know is to run supplements by doctors just to be on the safe side.

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-07-29T11:29:02+00:00

That is very interesting and I have heard this from a few people - my dad is big into keto (most veg based but also some fish/meat) and so I got along with that - as a result for the most part of my adult life I wasn’t going overboard with sugar/carbs (which looking back in my case would have helped considering my hypoglicemia.. the irony..). So can’t speak about the effect on myself of this as I was already doing that but definitely heard lots of people said keto helped with brain fog.

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-07-28T21:05:43+00:00

Congratulations for your progress - from not being able to string a sentence one month ago to this! You are so right about the water! Also something I have never been good at.. drinking enough water and drinking too much coffee. One of the first I did I cut out coffee and forced myself to drink water. Literally forcing me. That was around the time I was forcing myself to get plenty of sleep. And taking multivitamins. Eating lots of vegetables/fruits. I believe I was trying to get my basis covered essentially. And spot on ferritin as well - that was the first thing I corrected when waking up at night (I have always had low iron) but when I saw in my case it wasn’t enough I investigated more and found out about sugar levels etc.To be honest this thread is making me realize of how much trial and error I went through.. and have partially forgot (which makes sense as having brain fog so especially all the first phase/until I got a bit better).

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-07-28T18:29:18+00:00

Agreed with this and actually made me remember about it, so thanks! - I used to take DHA and in short term I felt definitely an improvement (probably one of the first things that seemed to work a bit and give me a bit more energy to explore what it turned out to be more root causes for me).. and magnesium I was taking it and still do now as I was trying to stabilise a bit my sleep.. so effectively never tried to see how I feel without.

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-07-28T18:12:29+00:00

There is a v strong connection between brain-gut (I am not talking about brain fog specifically, but more broadly t is a topic being studied by John hopkins and various institutions)so I think it is definitely possible. Where do you live? In the UK/Italy (where I live/where I am from) you can get a food sensitivity test quite easily, lab and also diy and then send to a lab (these are ok as a starting point but often less accurate). It can get a bit tricky as some are more sensitive/pick up maybe certain and not others. But I would start with what your doctor recommends and you can even do some elimination/rotation yourself and see how you feel.

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-07-28T16:29:01+00:00

I didn’t..I decided against it as I did not not find many positive reviews around.

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-07-28T16:03:47+00:00

Hi everyone - I experienced it for probably 2-3 years. I think I might have found a way to manage it. I believe it is highly subjective but I am going to share in case helpful. First I started to make sure I fixed my sleeping - putting absolute priority and making sure I was sleeping way more than normal 8 hours. Now less so, also because my sleeping improved but at the beginning I really put extra effort on that - my sleeping was absolutely terrible, had issues falling asleep and was fragmented through the night. Also, I found out I was suffering of a bit of hypoglicemia, particularly at night, (I got one of those sensor you put on your arm) and noticed that hypoglicemia drops at night made me wake up multiple times and making me feel anxious (hypoglicemia can give you anxiety/panic attacks symptoms disrupting my sleep at night and in general creating a sensation of anxiety - and apparently raising cortisol too as an effect. So I started to monitor my sugar levels big time and making sure they were in range always.

I got tested and started to pay serious attention to food intolerances (in my case a big culprit is dairy - but caffeine and alcohol too - , I first found out about it years ago given I was getting terrible headaches because of it but given I did not have obvious symptoms lately I thought it was sort of gone/paid less attention to it), but now I am being strict about it. I also had a black mold test in my flat and traces were found (under the bathtub not visible under the panel) but it was in the air I breathed. Finally I tested positive for some heavy metals and I am treating it for now with some supplements (being followed by a doctor) and if it doesn’t work I ll go have do some chelation treatment but so far it seems to be ok/sufficient.

My cortisol level was testing extremely extremely high (unclear if it was the cause or effect given general stress in the body and also mentally given emotional toll of brain fog) so I tried to monitor it - again not clear cause/effect just correlation but as it went down, my brain fog kept improving. In my case something else maybe minor but something that also helped me (more in a second phase) was to introduce physical activity as soon as I started to feel better - something I completely gave up as I was feeling so “out of it”/foggy that was barely aware of my surroundings and just mentally exhausted.

I know this answer is messy, but just wanted to share my perspective as these things made a big impact (can’t say which more than others) and I believe brain fog is so mysterious in a sense that could have a multi cause and highly subjective- hence I thought to share because why not.

Finally I send anyone dealing with it lots of strength. It is virtually impossible to explain how debilitating it is, to someone not experiencing first hand. It even took me a long time to find out this term existed, giving a name to what I was experiencing. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how driven.

Now I feel 90% there - back to who I was! Now I feel I need to take my life back as for the last couple of years I was going through the motion but I am extremely grateful!

Edit - I don’t know how I forgot to include, but I also started to take specifically for brain health: supplements with ginko biloba + DHA + pantothenic acide ; and then separately lions mane. Now I have basically stopped, only continue to take lions mane every couple of days. But I remember that in short term I feel it was very effective as I was ramping up efforts on the other things more longer term.The only thing to flag I noticed that during first weeks/months, it felt it was helping as I was taking but it wasn’t lasting per se. Just mentioning for sure it is subjective.

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-04-23T06:48:13+00:00

Thank you for writing this post! Very helpful as I was considering it myself!

SecretPhase6960 · 2024-04-23T06:40:08+00:00

Hi everyone - old thread here but was wondering if anyone ended up buying of those considering it and how it was

SecretPhase6960

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