I taught myself programming, at my first job I got up at 4AM every morning and practiced coding until leaving for work at 8AM. Then home at 7PM and programming until 10PM. Repeat until I could get a job as a programmer.
I taught myself Deep Learning. I saved my money until I could afford to take 3 months off, I jumped in the deep end (haha) and immersed myself in practice projects and papers for the whole 3 months -- 12+ hours a day, until I was employable as a Deep Learning engineer.
I taught myself Quantum Chemistry (and computational chemistry in general) by the same method, immerse myself in papers and code and just try stuff out, then I build https://atomictessellator.com to satisfy my own curiosity and scratch my own itch of poor comp. chem tooling.
Same with applied math, sink myself in papers and practice.
I got a job as a quant about 6 months ago, same thing, just immerse myself in the latest papers and code and practice until now - my models are the most profitable in the company.
I'm self taught the whole way, with no university debt, although I would admit that it takes a lot of willpower and disclipline, so isn't for most people.
I really enjoyed that scene in game of thrones when Sam shrugs and just says "I read the books and followed the instructions" -- thats all I do.
I think the thing that stops most people is they resist learning new infomation because every time there's something new there's a non-zero percentage chance in the new thing that they will not understand it and therefore be judged as inadquate, so people prefer the comfort of their little boxes, but once you shed this fear and develop an insatiable (I mean that literally) case of curiosity, everything becomes interesting, then you must develop disclipline so that your attention is not fragmented by the multiplicity of your interests.
I taught myself Deep Learning. I saved my money until I could afford to take 3 months off, I jumped in the deep end (haha) and immersed myself in practice projects and papers for the whole 3 months -- 12+ hours a day, until I was employable as a Deep Learning engineer.
I taught myself Quantum Chemistry (and computational chemistry in general) by the same method, immerse myself in papers and code and just try stuff out, then I build https://atomictessellator.com to satisfy my own curiosity and scratch my own itch of poor comp. chem tooling.
Same with applied math, sink myself in papers and practice.
I got a job as a quant about 6 months ago, same thing, just immerse myself in the latest papers and code and practice until now - my models are the most profitable in the company.
I'm self taught the whole way, with no university debt, although I would admit that it takes a lot of willpower and disclipline, so isn't for most people.
I really enjoyed that scene in game of thrones when Sam shrugs and just says "I read the books and followed the instructions" -- thats all I do.
I think the thing that stops most people is they resist learning new infomation because every time there's something new there's a non-zero percentage chance in the new thing that they will not understand it and therefore be judged as inadquate, so people prefer the comfort of their little boxes, but once you shed this fear and develop an insatiable (I mean that literally) case of curiosity, everything becomes interesting, then you must develop disclipline so that your attention is not fragmented by the multiplicity of your interests.