After I dropped out of a theoretical physics Ph.D. program a long time ago, I decided to try to become a computer programmer. I had not taken a single computer science course in college. I was lucky that my parents allowed me to live at home for a year while I spent my entire time teaching myself programming. A friend told me to learn Scheme, so I went through all of SICP using my sister's Mac (I did not own a computer at the time). Then I started to learn C and Unix, hacked a bit with that, learned C++, and applied for jobs after doing some open source work so that I could have something to show. I got hired as a software engineer a year after I started my self-study.
Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
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Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#12I've built up a solid fund over the past 4 months for this kind of self-study. The plan is to quit my job around May 1st, and use the resulting free time to spend 20 hours more a week on edification and 20 hours more on personal projects.
I'm explicitly committing for six months, with the option to continue it six more without even giving a thought to job-hunting.
The downside is that, at the end of it, I'll be down a bit more than 12 months of savings than I would be otherwise. So compared to the "stick with my job" plan, in my particular case I'd have 75% what I otherwise would. That's assuming I don't change my consumption habits from current.
In terms of intellectual growth, I've stagnated at my current position. So the skills built by taking this route are pure benefit. There's no trade off. The alternative of getting a job where I'm both challenging myself and getting paid (likely more than I am now) is more appealing, but getting a much more solid grasp of the fundamentals seems to trump that (I've never taken any CS classes).
I figure that the investment should pay itself off financially within 5 years, as a pessimistic estimate.
As far as the actual feeling... that's an open question for me, too. The big issues I see are making sure that I follow through with my intentions. No wasting any time on HN/Reddit. I shouldn't be doing that now, even.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#13How do future employers look at this time of unemployment?
This is a reason to worry.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#14Not earning for 6 months, a year or more isn't a big deal. Just plan for it financially ahead of time and leave a nice buffer so you are comfortable.
If your going to come out with a new skill set or even just a better outlook on life it's worth it IMO.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#15I think it worth every penny lost. But, I would suggest to do enough groundwork on what you would like to achieve in that period.
No financial earning periods can be quite challenging but if you have a job, like I had, that does not allow any time to explore yourself, I think it is worth taking time off if you are really serious and confident about doing something different. Also, bear in mind that your efforts could (will) take substantially longer to bear fruit. So, it is really important to set your expectations appropriately before taking the step forward.
As far as I can see, all successful stories are basically breaks that involved a lot of hard-work, luck and which finally materialized!
Just my 2p.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#16I took much of last year off to focus on learning the technologies needed to build the product for my startup -- graph databases was the big one, and during the time I built Bulbs (https://github.com/espeed/bulbs), a Python framework for graph databases like Neo4j Server.
Eliminating all distractions has been key -- no side jobs, no girlfriends, no going out -- a period of complete focus.
Working out and exercising has been critical though for keeping my energy level up and maintaining mental clarity.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#17How do future employers look at this time of unemployment?
Is that still a thing? It's not like you'll be applying to law firms. I've found making yourself less available only makes your demand higher.
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#18Totally worth it. Write open source code, it just might turn out to be the foundation of a career.
Just to reiterate what others have said: work on something concrete. Opensource projects, your own side project, a subject-specific blog, etc.
A year of study is worth significantly less if the results are only in your head.
Also - working on something real can give you measurable milestones to work toward completing. (The fact is, the longer time you set aside, the more time you are in danger of wasting.)
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#19Good question. I've done this a couple of times. Self-study can be incredibly useful. Being able to do it within the "distraction" of a full time job can also be extremely rewarding. I have a very conservative financial point of view in that if I got fired tomorrow I would want to be fine for the next year without working. This has in the past allowed me to work on my own stuff a couple of times without much worry (a…
lack of health insurance isn't the issue it is in the US
Here's what I've found about health insurance in the US:
1) It's not terribly difficult or expensive to get, at least, emergency coverage. In my 30s and single, I've found interesting plans for around $150 per month which cover simple doctor's visits a few times per year, with around a $10k deductible for 'real' stuff. This is very doable with reasonable financial padding. ehealthinsurance.com is the site I've used every time I've been unemployed over the last decade.
2) The whole thing about guaranteed acceptance with continuous coverage only applies when you are coming off of "group coverage" (i.e. through an employer or some industry associations, I think). Bizarrely, having maintained continuous coverage on my own now for three years means absolutely nothing if I want to change from a personal plan to a new personal plan. I was rejected out of hand for a neck injury I had over three years ago, and I'm effectively uninsurable in this state (Oregon) for another seven years!
Re: Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?
#20[deleted]