Pre-course project: set your goals
Before module 1, name the real system you'll work on for this course, and the moment it (or one like it) met production and broke. Everything you build hangs off this.
Pick the system, and the scar
This is not busywork. Every deck, every lab, and all five projects are built against your system, so choosing a real one now is the single most important setup step. You return to this reflection in module 6 and measure the distance.
- Bring a real problem, not a toy. The course is a six-week workshop on your thing. Someone who brings "the support bot that embarrassed us last quarter" gets ten times more out of it than someone building a generic demo.
The reflection
- Name the system in one sentence. A real or planned LLM feature you own or care about. "A support assistant over our help docs." "An agent that files expenses."
- Describe the moment it broke (or would)When an LLM feature met production and fell apart: a cost surprise, a confidently wrong answer, an outage, a leak. Be specific.
- Define "a system that holds"In your words: what would have to be true for you to trust this in front of real users at real volume?
- State one thing you want to leave able to do. Your personal goal for the this course. We check it in module 6.
The one-pager
My system
one sentence: what it does, for whom
The break
the moment it met production and failed (or would): …
Holds means
I would trust this in production when …
My goal
by module 6 I want to be able to …
Concrete beats aspirational
| Strong | Weak |
|---|---|
| - A real system you can describe and will keep using all course. - A specific failure, with what actually went wrong. - "Holds" defined in terms you could test. | - A generic demo you will abandon by module 2. - "It was slow sometimes" with no detail. - "I want to learn about AI" with nothing measurable. |
Bring it to module 1
Half a page is plenty. This becomes the backbone of every project. and
- Deliverable The four-line one-pager.
- Not sure yet? Pick the closest real thing. You can refine the scope in module 1; you cannot do the course against nothing. bring something real
Recap
- Choose one real system now. Every project in this course applies to it.
- Name a specific failure, not a vague worry. The specificity is what makes the later modules bite.
- Define what "it holds" means in testable terms. That definition becomes your eval plan in module 5.
- Next: module 1, where the first real decision is whether you need an agent at all.