I have the same feeling. Honestly, I think it’s really just a darker way of looking at curiosity. Curious people want to learn things, but there’s a mix of positive and negative motivations for it–FOMS being the negative motivation.
I’ve been taking MOOCs and doing self-directed study for a few years now and I’ve learned a ton. The math and physics have not had any practical applications for me (I work on the business end of a technology startup), but the programming and data-science HAS been useful. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, using only knowledge gained from MOOCs and then some independent practice, I built a supplementary Rails application to automate a part of my client onboarding process that now my entire team uses. It’s probably saved my company a few hundred man-hours of time (of highly skilled people, so that was worth some big money). It also felt awesome to do.
As far as recommendations go, it really depends on what you’re looking to do with it. I don’t regret learning more math and physics, but it’s definitely been less rewarding because I can’t use it to do anything. The positive feedback from learning programming has encouraged me to learn more and now I’m pretty good. I’m working on some side-projects and always looking for ways to automate parts of my job and our business. Are you looking to change careers ever? Do you have time for side projects? Are there any inefficiencies you see within our current company that you think you could improve with some more knowledge? If so, go for those. If not, then don’t worry about it and just learn what you’re driven to learn.
I will tell you this: You’ll never become an expert without doing it as a full-time job (or a full-time hobby I suppose). While I am “pretty good”, I know that if I worked with a team of skilled people I could learn from and had new novel challenges each day, my skills would skyrocket. So if career change is an option or if you have side projects you want to do, then take the appropriate MOOCs and see if you like it. But ifnot, then don’t feel like you’re missing out by not taking the MOOC. In this case, as much fun as it is to learn for learning’s sake, not taking the MOOC is not the reason you’re missing out on a field that interests you.
I have the same feeling. Honestly, I think it’s really just a darker way of looking at curiosity. Curious people want to learn things, but there’s a mix of positive and negative motivations for it–FOMS being the negative motivation.
I’ve been taking MOOCs and doing self-directed study for a few years now and I’ve learned a ton. The math and physics have not had any practical applications for me (I work on the business end of a technology startup), but the programming and data-science HAS been useful. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, using only knowledge gained from MOOCs and then some independent practice, I built a supplementary Rails application to automate a part of my client onboarding process that now my entire team uses. It’s probably saved my company a few hundred man-hours of time (of highly skilled people, so that was worth some big money). It also felt awesome to do.
As far as recommendations go, it really depends on what you’re looking to do with it. I don’t regret learning more math and physics, but it’s definitely been less rewarding because I can’t use it to do anything. The positive feedback from learning programming has encouraged me to learn more and now I’m pretty good. I’m working on some side-projects and always looking for ways to automate parts of my job and our business. Are you looking to change careers ever? Do you have time for side projects? Are there any inefficiencies you see within our current company that you think you could improve with some more knowledge? If so, go for those. If not, then don’t worry about it and just learn what you’re driven to learn.
I will tell you this: You’ll never become an expert without doing it as a full-time job (or a full-time hobby I suppose). While I am “pretty good”, I know that if I worked with a team of skilled people I could learn from and had new novel challenges each day, my skills would skyrocket. So if career change is an option or if you have side projects you want to do, then take the appropriate MOOCs and see if you like it. But if not, then don’t feel like you’re missing out by not taking the MOOC. In this case, as much fun as it is to learn for learning’s sake, not taking the MOOC is not the reason you’re missing out on a field that interests you.