The Recurse Center is a self-directed educational retreat for people who want to get better at programming, whether you’ve been coding for three months or three decades. You attend RC for either six or 12 weeks with a group of other programmers called a “batch.” You can find out more on About RC.
RC is a retreat for programmers in the same way that a writing residency is a retreat for writers. It’s a chance to step back from the distractions of everyday life and focus deeply on programming, while surrounded by other people doing the same thing.
At RC, you write software in collaboration with programmers from all over the world. What you build is entirely up to you. You do this so you can become a dramatically better programmer.
During your batch, you work at the edge of your abilities, choose projects that bring you joy, get inspired by the people around you, and learn generously to inspire them. To learn more, read The self-directives.
Yes, and no! Some people use LLMs to program every day, some don't touch them, and others are working on AI safety and training their own neural nets. It's up to you and your learning goals.
We wrote up some of our thoughts about AI and RC in this blog post. In short: you should approach your work at RC with rigor, and you shouldn't use LLMs mindlessly or passively to program for you. You must be actively, intellectually engaged in your work and learning for it to represent real growth.
Self-directed means that at RC, you choose what to work on. You build and learn things because you want to. Because they spark your curiosity and bring you joy. There’s no curriculum, and nobody to force you to do things you’re not interested in.
Self-directed does not mean unstructured. At RC you’ll find lots of structure – study groups, presentations, checkins, social events, and more – most of it organized by other Recursers, and almost all of it optional. You decide how to spend your time.
Recursers come from an extraordinarily diverse range of backgrounds. To find out more, read Who comes to RC.
No. RC is an educational retreat for people who already know how to program, and for programmers of all experience levels. Our goal is to create the best place for you to grow as a programmer, not to turn you into a professional programmer in three months. See Not a bootcamp for more.
RC is free for everyone. You will never receive a bill from RC.
RC has a built in recruiting agency. Companies pay to hire RC alumni. This payment never comes out of your salary.
If you want a programming job, either immediately after your batch or many years later, we can help you find one. If you don’t want a job, that’s fine too. There’s no obligation to work with RC to get a job at any point during or after your batch.
To find out more about how RC can help you grow your career, you can read Career services.
If you’re interested in recruiting from RC, you can learn more and get in touch with us here.
For more details about applying and to fill out an application, see Applying to RC.
No, sorry. RC is only for people who already know how to code. Think of it like attending a writers’ workshop: it can help you become a better novelist, but you have to already know English and be comfortable writing fiction.
You need to have programmed enough to know that you enjoy programming and are able to write programs from scratch. Most of your time here will be spent programming, and if you don’t like programming, you won’t like RC.
This doesn’t mean you need to be single-mindedly obsessed with coding or regularly spend 12 hours a day doing it; it just means the prospect of three months focusing on becoming a better programmer should sound like fun and not a chore.
If you get excited thinking about how programming languages are written, or solve Project Euler problems for fun, or get a burst of joy every time you squash a bug, you’re almost certainly a good fit for RC.
The lower bound for experience for people who have successfully done a batch of RC Retreat seems to be a few months. That is, we’ve had exceptional Recursers who started their batch with as little as two months of programming experience and who have done enormously well.
There is no upper bound for experience; we have people in the community with many decades of programming experience.
Definitely! People from more than 50 countries have attended RC in person and online. If you plan to attend RC remotely from a different timezone, keep in mind that our core hours are 11am - 5pm ET, Monday through Friday. Remote participants also need consistent access to a computer with a reliable, high-speed Internet connection.
For details about the admissions process and timeline, see Applying to RC.
It's hard to answer this question because it depends on a number of different factors including when you apply, how many other applications we receive during the same period, interviewer availability, and how quickly you're able to schedule your interviews.
In general, if you apply one month before a batch starts, we should be able to get you an answer in time for you to attend, but that's not a guarantee. We can occasionally get you an answer in as little as a week or two if we are able to review your application quickly and you are efficient about scheduling your interviews.
No, just submit one application for the batch you’re most likely to attend. If you’re admitted, you’ll have the option to choose a different one.
We don’t give individualized admissions feedback. You can read more about why here.
You’re welcome to reapply, but you must wait at least three months after receiving the decision on your previous application. Getting rejected does not disqualify you from attending RC. In fact, 6% of all Recursers applied at least twice before being admitted. The most valuable thing you can do when you reapply is to show that you've made progress becoming a better programmer.
The RC application includes a code sample so we can get a rough understanding of where you are as a programmer. We ask you to avoid frameworks because frameworks can make it harder for us to find the code you actually wrote. It’s often hard to figure out where the framework ends and your code begins.
You should choose whatever project you think best represents your programming ability, and use your judgement to decide whether it will be hard for us to quickly understand your program or figure out what parts of it you wrote. It’s better if you can submit a program that doesn't use a framework, even if you have to write something small for the application (tic-tac-toe works great). You're welcome to include links to any other projects you’re proud of in the "Links" section of your application.
The next batch starts on Monday, March 30th, 2026. You can find a list of upcoming batches on Applying to RC.
Attending a retreat at RC is a full-time commitment. You can attend for either a full batch (12 weeks) or a half-batch (six weeks). Batches meet Monday through Friday, 11 am to 5 pm ET. We expect you to make RC your primary commitment while you're in batch, and to be engaged with RC full-time every day.
All Recursers have 24/7 access to the physical Hub, Zulip, and Virtual RC.
It’s okay to miss one or two days of your batch because of prior engagements, however, it’s not okay to miss more than that (e.g., a full week). If you would need to miss more than a couple of days of a batch, you should attend another batch. A large part of the educational value of RC comes from your interactions with your batchmates and alumni, and being around consistently during your batch is an important part of that.
No, unfortunately. The first and last days of each batch are different from the rest, and it’s essential that everyone attend them. The first day begins with a welcome ceremony in the morning and the last day ends with a 'Never graduate!' celebration. If you can’t make it for one or both of those, you should choose another batch that fits your schedule better.
No, not unless you’re an in-batch Recurser or an alum.
While at RC, people work on programming projects, self-study using books or online courses, and teach and learn from each other both informally and in casual workshops and seminars. We believe that people learn best when given the freedom to focus on what interests them, rather than having to follow a fixed curriculum.
We’ve found that everyone learns a lot when a group of smart, curious people get in a room together to write code and help each other grow.
You can read more about our educational philosophy here.
You can learn more on our Virtual RC page!.
No. The reasons to attend the Recurse Center are to become a better programmer, to work on projects you’re excited about, to join the world’s best programming community, and to get a free t-shirt. You can learn more about the reasons people attend by reading Why RC.
Yes.
We were part of the Summer 2010 Y Combinator batch and have received additional funding from Founder Collective, SV Angel and a small set of angel investors. We also received a Flash Grant from the Shuttleworth Foundation.
When referring to us in a sentence, our name is written as the Recurse Center (note the lowercase “the,” capitalized “Recurse” and “Center,” and space between the two), and can be abbreviated as RC. Written on its own (i.e., not in a sentence), we are simply Recurse Center.
People who are attending or who have attended the Recurse Center are Recursers. Past Recursers are also known as alums, alumni or alumnae.