3 years ago, this was me starting my XR journey... making friends in an incredible community and beginning a path I didn’t fully understand yet.
My XR beginning was not cinematic. It was YouTube tutorials, unfamiliar menus, components I only half understood, and a lot of pausing videos to figure out why my version looked completely different from theirs.
The glamorous milestones came later. The real foundation was learning in public, asking questions, and staying curious through the phase where everything feels harder than it looks. When I teach XR now, I try to remember that version of me. The person in the workshop may not need a perfect overview; they may just need one successful interaction that makes them want to keep going.
when I first joined the Emerging Analytics Center, I honestly had no idea how deep the XR world went. like most people, I started with YouTube tutorials.
The classic Fist Full of Shrimp Unity, Valem and other Unity XR tutorials videos were some of the first ones I followed. they were a great way to get something working quickly. But over time I realized something important: learning XR isn’t just about following tutorials. it’s about understanding how immersive systems actually work... interaction design, spatial computing, telemetry data, hardware constraints, and how humans behave inside virtual environments. working in the lab completely changed how I approached it.
Huge thanks to my lab mates Cecily Mobley, Phillip Bryan, and Mohammad Jahed Murad Sunny who helped guide me when I was just getting started at the EAC lab!
a lot of what I understand about XR today came from those early conversations and experiments. XR isn’t “too early” anymore. it's already here, in research labs, industry applications, and increasingly in everyday products. If you're starting to explore XR development today, it’s honestly one of the most exciting fields to build in.
if you're curious about XR and want some good tutorials or developer communities, comment or DM “XR” and tell me what you're interested in building. Happy to share some resources that helped me when I started!
This is still one of the threads running through almost everything I build: useful technology should not require people to surrender more of themselves than the experience truly needs. Privacy is not a final checkbox. It is part of the product architecture.