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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

#11

Post by hooloovoo_zoo »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #2

I'm doing something similar. I got undergraduate degrees in CS and business and worked 5 years for a large corp right out of school. I saved my money and, using a rollover for business startup, I funded my business. I'm lucky enough to have a 2-earner household and a partner that is giving me time to figure out where I want to go next. I've been on "sabbatical" for a little over a year. I've had a couple false starts…

I don't know what you're doing with chemistry, but if it involves any kind of physical experimentation I would implore you to exercise caution. Lab sciences are very hard to self study because a lot of important practical and safety knowledge is passed down in the lab and not in books. My friends who became chemists spent 1000+ hours in labs by the time they finished their undergraduate degree, for reference.

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

#12

Post by jacquesm »

hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #11
alistproducer2 wrote: post #2

I'm doing something similar. I got undergraduate degrees in CS and business and worked 5 years for a large corp right out of school. I saved my money and, using a rollover for business startup, I funded my business. I'm lucky enough to have a 2-earner household and a partner that is giving me time to figure out where I want to go next. I've been on "sabbatical" for a little over a year. I've had a couple false starts…

I don't know what you're doing with chemistry, but if it involves any kind of physical experimentation I would implore you to exercise caution. Lab sciences are very hard to self study because a lot of important practical and safety knowledge is passed down in the lab and not in books. My friends who became chemists spent 1000+ hours in labs by the time they finished their undergraduate degree, for reference.

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 of fun and learn a lot for very little money, the real dangers are usually in stuff that goes 'foom' is larger quantities than advised and stuff that poisons you, and with MSDS online that is a lot safer today than it used to be when I was a kid.

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

#13

Post by z3t4 »

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…

What are your short time goals? What is most painful for you currently? What do you need to do right now in order to solve it?

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

#14

Post by gdubs »

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…

Sometimes it takes getting out of your usual box to make discoveries about what will motivate you. It might seem like a waste of time to explore something new — like film, or art — but often those explorations can spark some creativity that reinvigorates your work.

As far as personal projects go - the challenging, the better as far as I’m concerned. But what really matters is that the end result is something that excites you and keeps you going when the project goes through the inevitable dull, trying patches.

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

#15

Post by ebrewste »

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 customer value (customer can be anyone, including yourself) that gates success. Clear customer value can be tech heavy, aimed at tech users, but the tech by itself doesn't have much value.

Things that I see that are cool really solve a problem. I am finding that I am doubling down on looking at the problem that is being solved before I deal with tech. Tech is critically needed and you learn useful stuff on the way, but what I am learning, repeatedly, is that the really cool stuff is the product of the clear customer value and delivering on the underlying tech.

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

#16

Post by christiansakai »

cjauvin wrote: post #10
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…

I'm currently going (slowly) through this fantastic book, which I greatly enjoy and recommend: https://www.craftinginterpreters.com/

Nice, I'll take a look on that one as well.

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

#17

Post by christiansakai »

gdubs wrote: post #14
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…

Sometimes it takes getting out of your usual box to make discoveries about what will motivate you. It might seem like a waste of time to explore something new — like film, or art — but often those explorations can spark some creativity that reinvigorates your work. As far as personal projects go - the challenging, the better as far as I’m concerned. But what really matters is that the end result is something that exc…

Ah yes, I do have other hobbies that I pursue.

But I do want to improve better in my technical skills. Idk, as I get older, I want to weigh what my options are, since going into management isn't exactly I'm excited about.

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

#18

Post by munificent »

christiansakai wrote: post #16
cjauvin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently going (slowly) through this fantastic book, which I greatly enjoy and recommend: https://www.craftinginterpreters.com/

Nice, I'll take a look on that one as well.

I'm the author of "Crafting Interpreters".

I really like "Engineering a Compiler", but it's probably not the best first book for implementing a programming language. It's primarily a textbook for backend optimization. It covers just enough front end to feel like a complete book, but you can tell the authors assume you've already taken an undergrad class in compilers before.

It is an excellent second or third book after you have a working compiler and you want to start understanding how industrial-grade compilers make code go fast. It's the best textbook I know on optimization. Most other compiler optimization material lives in academic papers, which can be scattershot and difficult to absorb.

One of my goals with "Crafting Interpreters" was to give people an intuitive feel for PL implementation so that they are better prepared to approach deeper works like "Engineering a Compiler".

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

#19

Post by christiansakai »

z3t4 wrote: post #13
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…

What are your short time goals? What is most painful for you currently? What do you need to do right now in order to solve it?

Those are good questions and part of my soul searching as well. I think I want to get into top tech companies (financially motivated), but I've been studying DS&A a lot and definitely think it was a diminishing returns. I think my DS&A is pretty good but I'm still experiencing failure for FAANG interviews. I don't want to do more DS&A if I have to, but I want to get better so that I can move beyond just doing APIs and widgets.

I am not that interested in management track. As I get older, I think technical skills aren't as valued anymore, except in top tech companies.

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

#20

Post by hwwc »

I'm also taking a sabbatical! I guess mine is also self study, although I never quite thought of it that way. I've taken this time to be able to have in-person lunches with many interesting people, work on open source projects, and sit in on seminars at the local university. I think I'm just beginning to learn how to access local resources for learning.

I'm also thinking of freelancing, and have been gearing up for contracts, and also to perhaps start an agency with a friend. I really value the freedom that has allowed me to explore my programming and math (and climbing/yoga/martial arts) interests these last few months.

One unexpected thing about my sabbatical: my social life is better, I have way more time and energy for it :)

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