Yesterday was my last as a full-timer at General Assembly.

While reflecting on my time at GA, I'm taken back to the summer of 2010. I had just moved home to Brooklyn from Buenos Aires and was freelance writing all over the place to make rent. I wrote a lengthy piece on the emerging daily deal scene and interviewed the stand-up gents behind Yipit. During a follow-up coffee, Yipit co-founder Jim Moran told me about his plans to move into a coworking space called General Assembly, and while I don't remember his exact words, he described it as pretty much the coolest place to be on Earth for startups.

From there I met one of GA's four co-founders, Matt Brimer, who took me on a tour of a construction site on the 4th floor of 902 Broadway. I remember feeling like we - as in the entire NYC tech scene - were on the edge of something truly great.

Fast forward two years and many a couch-crashing, co-working afternoon at GA later, I began to entertain the idea of leaving media, New York City and all my friends and family to fly across the pond and jump into London's relatively nascent startup ecosystem. After interviewing and writing about nearly every entrepreneur on the East Coast for the indefatigable The Next Web, I wrote one last blog post, titled "Breaking News: I'm Joining General Assembly".

Landing in London last June to help launch GA's first international campus in London has been one of the most exciting, challenging and most inspirational times in my career. I've met thousands of students, hundreds of teachers and have had the pleasure to work with some of the most incredibly brilliant people across Europe. My favorite part of the past 9 months has been working with our small team, and I am very proud of all that we've accomplished together.

However, it hasn't been all sunshine, rainbows and sold-out coding classes. Launching someone else's company in a foreign country is incredibly hard work; especially when that company requires keeping thousands of students and hundreds of teachers happy while simultaneously injecting new ideas and value propositions into a foreign culture. It takes patience, while racing against a clock, and it demands constant ingenuity, fearlessness and experimentation without complete autonomy.

The idea of leading my own company, building something that didn't exist before, something that makes other people's lives better, has intrigued me since I was a little girl who loved inventing stories to make others smile. But I always felt like I wasn't quite ready to venture out on my own and had more learning to do before I got there.

I treat everything in life as a learning opportunity; I look at my time at Forbes Magazine as getting my masters in journalism, my time at The Next Web as my masters in the Internet and now I look at my time at General Assembly like a mini-MBA in tech startups. Over the past six months, in between weekends away with entrepreneur friends and afternoons in coffee shops on Leather Lane, fantasizing about "what we should do next", I came upon the idea that will be my next adventure.

I sent this note out yesterday to a handful of my teammates.

To my favorites + the chosen ones,

The sky is cloudy and yesterday’s rain lingers on the streets of London. But inside our glass house on top of White Bear Yard, nestled amongst red brick buildings in Clerkenwell, there are eager students, warm coffee cups and a small, very proud team who are keeping all the lights on.

Today is my last as a full-timer at GA. I’m very proud of all we’ve accomplished as a team and look forward to seeing our European presence grow as a teacher, student & friend. With a happy heart, confident mind and sad smile, I’ll say goodbye and walk out of General Assembly London (with this followed by this in my headphones), leaving behind the makings of a legacy.

I’m flying to New York tomorrow to spend a week with mentors & friends to craft and unleash my future plans. I’m not moving back just yet – I’m based in London until the end of the summer at least, and am not sure I’ll ever be able to live in just one city ever again...

Thank you all so much for supporting, challenging and inspiring me over this past year. Keep the music and food recs coming!

Be well until we break bread and dance together soon.

Cheers,
CBM

Since launching in early 2011, General Assembly has grown into a 100-person, global cadre on the forefront of education innovation. The company's most successful statistics are the tens of thousands of students who've entered its doors and left with a better idea of what they want to do next. I feel very fortunate to have been part of building that environment and also to be one of its students.

This week has been an emotional roller coaster for so many of us - one I will always remember for its terror, but also for its resilience, its endings and its new beginnings.

I am quite literally on an airplane right now, tethering off my iPhone and headed towards the runway for takeoff. When we touch down, I'll be back in New York City (err, technically Newark for a hot minute...) for just one week and I'm very much looking forward to catching up with so many of you.

Drop me an email or hit me up on Twitter @CBM. See you in 3460 Miles!