I've built up a solid fund over the past 4 months for this kind of self-study. The plan is to quit my job around May 1st, and use the resulting free time to spend 20 hours more a week on edification and 20 hours more on personal projects.
I'm explicitly committing for six months, with the option to continue it six more without even giving a thought to job-hunting.
The downside is that, at the end of it, I'll be down a bit more than 12 months of savings than I would be otherwise. So compared to the "stick with my job" plan, in my particular case I'd have 75% what I otherwise would. That's assuming I don't change my consumption habits from current.
In terms of intellectual growth, I've stagnated at my current position. So the skills built by taking this route are pure benefit. There's no trade off. The alternative of getting a job where I'm both challenging myself and getting paid (likely more than I am now) is more appealing, but getting a much more solid grasp of the fundamentals seems to trump that (I've never taken any CS classes).
I figure that the investment should pay itself off financially within 5 years, as a pessimistic estimate.
As far as the actual feeling... that's an open question for me, too. The big issues I see are making sure that I follow through with my intentions. No wasting any time on HN/Reddit. I shouldn't be doing that now, even.
I'm explicitly committing for six months, with the option to continue it six more without even giving a thought to job-hunting.
The downside is that, at the end of it, I'll be down a bit more than 12 months of savings than I would be otherwise. So compared to the "stick with my job" plan, in my particular case I'd have 75% what I otherwise would. That's assuming I don't change my consumption habits from current.
In terms of intellectual growth, I've stagnated at my current position. So the skills built by taking this route are pure benefit. There's no trade off. The alternative of getting a job where I'm both challenging myself and getting paid (likely more than I am now) is more appealing, but getting a much more solid grasp of the fundamentals seems to trump that (I've never taken any CS classes).
I figure that the investment should pay itself off financially within 5 years, as a pessimistic estimate.
As far as the actual feeling... that's an open question for me, too. The big issues I see are making sure that I follow through with my intentions. No wasting any time on HN/Reddit. I shouldn't be doing that now, even.