Ask HN: Have you taken 6 months to 1 year break to do self study?

I've taken several 6 month - 1 year breaks, but probably not for what you have in mind when you wrote this question.

Still, I think it was very much worth it.

Initially, I would spend my entire years off travelling, pausing from time to time at a spot with good rock climbing. Eventually, I started adding a bit of freelance development work into the mix, and spent a few years turning that into a consulting business that meant I didn't ever need to come home.

Nowadays, when I'm on the road, you'll often find me working on my own products, which incidentally are a much nicer form of income than consulting. A lot of the things I do during these periods might in fact fit your description of self study, since there's a lot of non-programming knowledge that you need to take a SaaS business from "pile of code" to "product that pays your rent".

Overall though, I'd consider all my years of travel to be about learning. Self study, studying the world. As I said above, I'd highly recommend finding a way to do it.

In late 2003 I was laid off from my job as a hardware/firmware design engineer. I spent the next two years away from work. During this time I spent nearly a year on self-study, got married, and then went travelling with my wife in Europe and south-east Asia. We worked on and off while travelling to be able to afford to continue our adventures.

If you are a self-motivated learner I would highly recommend a study break. The stuff I learnt during my break helped me secure my current job. I spent most of my time learning about web development, both client-side and server-side technologies. I now teach these technologies at a local college. I also do contract web work on the side.

As others have mentioned, be sure to pick some solid learning outcomes. Map out your study goals. Give yourself timeframes and be sure to reward yourself when you meet these milestones.

I'd recommend either blogging about your experiences or putting together a portfolio of work. This will come in handy when future employers ask about the gap in your resume. Working on one or two open-source projects might also be worth while.

Learning to live frugally and within your means is also key.

>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.

Having enough money for just 1 year isn't conservative.

You mean periods of time where you earn little to no money, and learn new skills constantly? That's a startup.

Have you checked these claims in the "real world"?

Costs have been rising substantially each and every year. The number of employers willing to give even full time employees insurance has been shrinking and the cost of your employer's health insurance plan willing be quite high considering you don't have your employers tax incentives.