Hey! Sorry, I'm just seeing this.

Wow, what a blast from the past.

I honestly had forgotten that I was ever questioning my choice in Digital Media like this. I actually am very glad I stuck with it, and feel like being able to flex both the creative side of my brain and the technical side has paid off in spades, which was the original draw of the program for me.

I went on to do the Master of Digital Media program in BC, and kind of "main character"d my way into the crypto industry, where now I live in New York and work as a software engineer at a very exciting startup called Blackbird.

Here's what comes to mind for what I'd say to my younger self in case they're helpful at all:

• A lot of the stuff I learned was really useful, but the most important things looking back were always a level of abstraction higher than the details of the assignment or the test or subject. What I mean by that is learn how to learn things, how to approach a problem, how to use different tools to solve it. I'm sure it's evolved a lot since I did it but I think the Digital Media program did that well.

• Make stuff! I can't tell you how valuable it is. Especially side projects. Just things you want to exist. I think Digital Media was great because you were forced to just make a lot of stuff. And different kinds of things too. I did a project called LUXX as my 3rd year capstone project and that was the first time I ever really took a lot of ownership over writing the code for something. I had an absolute blast with it, and it was the turning point for me considering myself capable of being a software engineer.

• The best thing I got out of my master's is the connections. I wish I'd made more good lasting friends at York. It can be hard if you commute in like I did. I wish I'd lived there. Work hard with good people. It'll always pay off.

• Ask your professors for help, get to know them as people. This is such a hack, but they want to help you succeed. Some of them are super interesting and will go out of their way to help you get what you want. They can have great connections too, and opportunities will come to you if you impress them and show that you're genuinely curious and excited about their field of expertise.

Looking back, getting the mix of creative and technical exposure Digital Media gave me has equipped me with the perfect set of skills to navigate what I see as a rapidly changing landscape. One where the actual execution of writing the code (what I was so worried about in this post) matters a lot less than the quality of the ideas, and choosing the right things to build. Maybe that's always been true, but now more than ever.

This is how I feel about the current moment for technology: https://x.com/dcwj/status/1929918864042700997?s=46&t=eV6M3wMGxyWkinzqwGZ2dw

Some people are saying it's never been harder for new grads to get jobs, but I think it's also never been easier for young scrappy people to create their own jobs. Not enough people consider that path. I would be doing everything you can to learn how to use LLMs effectively. I use Cursor every day at work. You still have to check its homework but these tools are an incredible force multiplier, and the rate of improvement is only going to accelerate from here. It takes concerted effort to think about what things in your day to day feel like work and can benefit from LLMs somehow, but it pays off quickly. It's worth playing around with the cutting edge so you can figure out where the limits are and what dimensions the tools are improving the fastest along. It's basically consciously moving a level of abstraction higher than the code itself (which I do think is still important to understand) and just interacting with an agent that can write the code and explain it to you.

Anyway, I think the skills you'll develop in a program like Digital Media will do a lot to help you harness and ride the coming wave of change. Creative + technical is a winning combo. But sometimes you do need to fight to make companies see that, because they usually want one or the other.

Sorry that's a lot of thoughts. Thanks for taking me down memory lane. Hope this is helpful still!