I’m certainly no expert on self-studying maths. I’ve generally found it easy to pick up a conceptual understanding from skimming textbooks, and for some subjects (e.g. statistics, Bayesian probability, maybe logic) I think that’s where most of the value lies. I’ve never had the drive or made the time to work through a lot of exercises on my own, and I’d guess that for subjects like linear algebra being able to actually work through problems is probably the important part.
So if you have a subject where both (i) it’s not clearly relevant, and (ii) getting a useful understanding requires working through a lot of exercises, then I’d probably hold off.
I’m certainly no expert on self-studying maths. I’ve generally found it easy to pick up a conceptual understanding from skimming textbooks, and for some subjects (e.g. statistics, Bayesian probability, maybe logic) I think that’s where most of the value lies. I’ve never had the drive or made the time to work through a lot of exercises on my own, and I’d guess that for subjects like linear algebra being able to actually work through problems is probably the important part.
So if you have a subject where both (i) it’s not clearly relevant, and (ii) getting a useful understanding requires working through a lot of exercises, then I’d probably hold off.