I have worked independently for over a decade., so I often factor in time for study in my regular work schedule, but at times I have also taken longer breaks.
One I too about a year off on a startup idea I had. It did not work out, but I learned some important lessons.
I have also taken 3 months off to be part of a startup accelerator as a fellow. I did not have any product, but just spend my time working on a few experiments / prototypes and generally helping other teams wherever I could.
The ideas experimented did become my startup, which I have been working on since the past year or so. It is actually related to peer based learning (http://diycomputerscience.com/), so I am hoping that learning will be an integral part of working for me.
I think self directed learning is far better than going back to school. You can pic and choose and curate the exact learning experiences you want.
Don't mean to self promote, but you are welcome to be part of the free peer learning community on http://diycomputerscience.com/ You might actually like the 'Elements of Computing Systems' course a lot.
I second the idea of creating a portfolio of work as a blog. I have done this and it lead to several opportunities for training workshops and consulting.
I just realized that the title is misleading. It should have been "Getting knowledge worth a CS degree without going to school - An unusual challenge". I have changed the title in the blog, but cannot change it here. Sorry for the confusion.
You are right, a person does not earn an official degree. But it is still possible to establish credentials to find employment, or use the knowledge to create your own startup.
Some time back I started working on a DIY learning solution for Computer Science. It is based on the concept of peer based social learning.
The website has courses which are a collection of material, forums, and activities. Participants consume the information, ask/answer questions, submit responses to activities, and even review other participant's responses.
There are no certificates, but whatever a participant does is made available in their profile and is their credentials.
I will really appreciate if you can take a look at the website and offer me suggestions on how I can offer the participant's a better learning experience.
This is a great idea in a really crowded market. I browsed through the site and tested some functionality. Thoughts:
- The site is quite text heavy. This is probably not a big issue for those highly-motivated to use the site, you're going to discourage use from the casual crowd...which seems to be a big attribute that your site promotes. Casual, self-paced learning. Right?
- The various functions don't seem to be tied together in a very meaningful way. They are all partitioned and activity in one part doesn't seem to surface anywhere else. If you're looking for engagement, this is important. Take a look at Stackoverflow. Practically ANYWHERE you touch on that site will surface additional value to others on the site. Votes will bump old questions. Comments alert the OP that you had something to say. Adding tags expands the reach of specific questions.
- I think you want other people to add content to the site as well, but it's not immediately clear on the best way to do that.
- Everyone on your site is a Twitter account...and that's probably not the perspective you want your users to have on each other. Looking at SO again, their profile tags are quite expressive about the value they add to the community at a glance. This is the target you want to shoot for.
- Making DIYComputerScience an auxiliary tool for your resume is a good idea, but as it stands right now this is not something I would want to use to represent me professionally. I know this is probably still young, but if this is going to be one of your value propositions you're going to have to shine. Again, SO has careers.stackoverflow.com and those layouts are VERY nice and does a great job of pulling in experience/value that you've added from their StackExchange sites. (I use them almost exclusively for my online resume.)
I'm going to give advice that I give to any startup who is entering a crowded market. Your PRIMARY differentiation will be your user's experience. It's good that you realize this and am making it your goal. Here's a great answer on Quora which touches on this exactly: http://www.quora.com/Internet-Startups/Should-I-focus-on-a-g...
Thank you very much for your excellent feedback and for giving your time and effort. You have made very important observations. I will address all these concerns as I move ahead with the development.
I know it may not be much consolation, but many people go through such phases at least once (or even more) in their life.
Think of it as a phase, which will leave you more skilled and happy when it's done.
When passing through a phase of feeling worthless, it is common to become inundated with things and not being able to take tasks to completion. The trick is to set small achievable goals. Make goals that will take no more than a couple of hours to couple of days to accomplish (start small if you can). Every time you complete something, cross it off your list. Every time you cross an item, it will give you a feeling of accomplishment and confidence.
Try using the Pomodoro technique to stay focused. It has helped a lot of people (myself included), and it may help you too.
I have a website for peer based learning of various computer science topics. I will be glad if it helps you in any way. You can check it out at http://diycomputerscience.com/
Remember that such phases often happen to bring about growth, and you will come out of this better off.
From someone who has actually been there and is getting close to 40, first define what success means to you.
I too burned myself out around when I was 30, got ulcers and Chrohns disease (still have it but it's manageable now), and kept on see-sawing between falling ill and working like crazy.
My experience is that too much stress makes the body susceptible to many ills, and is just not worth it.
What does success mean to you?
- Is is accumulation of wealth ?
- Is it a social projection (people perceiving you as successful) ?
- Is it the satisfaction of having lived a positive, constructive and happy life ?
I cannot say for everyone, but I feel that wealth is important to a certain extent, but beyond a threshold it does not matter a whole lot. Same goes for social projection, but to an even lesser degree. On the other hand if you figure out what truly makes you happy, and what gifts you have, which you can use to lead a positive and constructive life, then success and happiness is in the fact that you are doing what you really want to do.
