Over the winter break, I spent a month on the US East Coast — the first half in Cambridge, Boston, and the second in New York City. While in Boston, I explored the city and had the unique opportunity to attend MIT’s Introduction to Deep Learning (6.S191) in person on campus. It was one of the most engaging short courses I’ve attended. There were a few hands-on labs, one about building RNNs for music generation, one on facial recognition biases, and one on fine-tuning LLM. It was a great refresher and broad overview of key deep learning concepts. (The lecture videos, slides, and lab repos are available online for those interested.)
What truly made Boston memorable, were the people I met — Allen, William, Charles and Roberto. Conversations with these amazing people flowed from AI’s potential to global shifts in tech and society.
New York brought a completely different kind of energy. I took the Amtrak train down from Boston, and stayed for a week around Times Square. The pace was intense and chaotic, but through the buzz of the subway and crowded streets, I caught a glimpse of how finance, culture, and innovation collide.
This was my first visit to the US and it left a deep impression. I appreciated the academic atmosphere and the quieter winter charm of Cambridge, as well as the drive and ambition that define New York. More than anything, this trip gave me a firsthand perspective on how people in the US live, think, and build with technology — marked by openness to ideas, diversity in academia, and a relentless pursuit of innovation.