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Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

jotaen.net

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Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#61

Post by moosey »

sidusknight wrote: post #39
moosey wrote: post #4

I am 20 years out of college with a CS degree, working in your typical business rules development kind of job. Exactly the kind of job that doesn't need a CS degree, but I'm perfectly decent at programming business rules, so there's that. Last year, I've been on a learning binge myself, due to the fact that I want to understand the underlying workings of the technologies that are shaping our near future. In this inte…

> I'm close to completing Single Variable Calculus on the OCW website on MIT. It's probably too late for that course, but IMO MIT's courses on edx are much better structured than on MIT OCW or whatever it's called.

I've done edx, Coursera, now mit ocw, khan academy, and plan on continued experimentation. The best tool overall I've found is Anki.

I've also tried to keep my learning carried with lots of reading. The most academic book of the year I had was"energy and civilization".

I would strongly recommend learning how to learn to help formulate a learning plan and making sure you get the right level of challenge.

Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#63

Post by AA-BA-94-2A-56 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #42

I sincerely wish you the best of luck. I suspect it will work out well. I've been in an "involuntary" sabbatical. When I left the company I'd been at for over a quarter-century (mostly as a manager, but very technical), I immediately ran into "Go away, old man. Nobody wants you." It was pretty jarring, insulting, and humiliating, but what really happened, was I got upset. When I get upset, I get busy (paraphrased fro…

Very cool commnent mate, look forward to hearing about what you'll do in the near future.

Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#64

Post by emmanueloga_ »

Thinking back on all the subjects I've ever studied and books I've read, I've lost a lot of familiarity with many of those subjects (although I do find myself picking up much faster when I come back, even years later).

I dream of taking this kind of sabbatical too, it is just a bit scary to do it without some kind of framework that would allow me to plan my week, and annotate, structure, accumulate, and review the things that I learn. I feel like I should focus on finding / designing that system before planning on taking the sabbatical.

Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#65

Post by mrwnmonm »

christiansakai wrote: post #9

I am not doing any Sabbatical right now, but I am currently soul searching. I've been working as a fullstack dev for more about 5 years. I do have CS background, and think myself as quite a decent programmer. But in my day job, or I suspect in most day jobs out there, CRUD stuff, nothing is really interesting and it is really hard to make a leap in improvement in technical skills. Though of course, you improve bit by…

wtf, are you me from another direction? I am exactly the same and was about to read chapter 2 in Engineering a Compiler right now.

Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#66

Post by cookiesboxcar »

christiansakai wrote: post #52
he11ow wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it is really hard to make a leap in improvement in technical skills. So true. I think it's exactly because of this that many professionals tend to reach a level and then expand their knowledge at the margin.From today's vantage point, it's incredibly difficult to tell which jobs will be around in 10, 20, 30 years' time. That makes me feel like learning new skills isn't a choice, it's a way to stay in the game for th…

Yes it is. It is also hard to keep up in this expanding field. Like, keeping up with kubernetes is a full time job, keeping up with machine learning techniques is also a full time job, keeping with frontend is also a full time job. Best practices change all the time. CQRS was all the rage now people want to do away with Kafka. Thanks for the link, I'm reading it.

Care to elaborate on your comment about CQRS and Kafka?

Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#67

Post by samename »

ebrewste wrote: post #15
christiansakai wrote: post #9

I am not doing any Sabbatical right now, but I am currently soul searching. I've been working as a fullstack dev for more about 5 years. I do have CS background, and think myself as quite a decent programmer. But in my day job, or I suspect in most day jobs out there, CRUD stuff, nothing is really interesting and it is really hard to make a leap in improvement in technical skills. Though of course, you improve bit by…

My personal tech journey has been doing more advising within the corporation regarding how to roll out new IoT stuff. Spending more time the with more senior people in the corp and seeing projects that are having problems because they don't really have a vision has been an eye opener. I'm a tech person and want to code or otherwise engineer my way out of every problem, but I'm seeing over and over, it's the clear cus…

How did you get to that role, is it a management position? I’m in a junior dev role but constantly find myself focused on the bigger idea and vision that solves people experience everyday.

Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#68

Post by jiux »

christiansakai wrote: post #9

I am not doing any Sabbatical right now, but I am currently soul searching. I've been working as a fullstack dev for more about 5 years. I do have CS background, and think myself as quite a decent programmer. But in my day job, or I suspect in most day jobs out there, CRUD stuff, nothing is really interesting and it is really hard to make a leap in improvement in technical skills. Though of course, you improve bit by…

A paintbrush is simply a tool that enables a painter to bring a dream to reality.

A piano is simply a tool that enables a pianist to bring a dream to reality.

A programming language is simply a tool that enables a programmer to bring a dream to reality.

Ask yourself this:

“Am I a dreamer and a doer...or have I just been doing?”

Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#69

Post by ddsea »

jcims wrote: post #27
jacquesm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercising caution is good advice, but you can overdo it too. The kind of stuff I got up to with my chemistry set 42 years ago would probably scare the pants of you but I learned a lot and the worst that ever happened was that I lost some glassware. Safety glasses, good ventilation, gloves when you need them and patience are the most important ingredients here, as well as a good textbook or course. You can have hours…

The tree F's of safety in home chemistry: fans, fire extinguishers and feet.

This quote made me wonder about analogs in other activities, e.g. woodworking.

Re: Reflecting on 8 months of full-time self-study

#70

Post by rs23296008n1 »

mihaaly wrote: post #60
christiansakai wrote: post #9

I am not doing any Sabbatical right now, but I am currently soul searching. I've been working as a fullstack dev for more about 5 years. I do have CS background, and think myself as quite a decent programmer. But in my day job, or I suspect in most day jobs out there, CRUD stuff, nothing is really interesting and it is really hard to make a leap in improvement in technical skills. Though of course, you improve bit by…

>it is really hard to make a leap in improvement in technical skills. It is not supposed to happen that way. Only in dreams or under the right stellar constellation matching optimal circumstances. In other words: when being lucky. Mastering knowledge is a long process. Knowing a technique is one thing, applying properly in practice on a daily basis in combination with other aspects is the next, knowing when not to us…

Actual paid tasks / public use of your creation is definitely a good measure. It shows gaps as other people lean on it and put the weight of their own usage and expectations into play. Its the difference between making a tool for yourself versus sharing it with others. They will see it differently. Hopefully you'll receive enough constructive criticism that will improve the tool and your process as well.

Followup thought: We can make things alone but are always surrounded by and connected to the greater community. This is not the same as teamwork. Private victory proceeds public victory.

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