I write this post as both a cautionary tale to those reading and an inspiration to myself.

The Pitfalls Of Self Learning

Throughout my self learning journey, I have come across some common pitfalls that many people fall into. First, there are almost tribal sub communities within CS that fully subscribe to a grindset mentality. These groups share traits such as obsessing over becoming cracked, min maxing learning, and calling out less experienced programmers. While intense discipline works for some, it leads to burnout for many. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are content creators on every social media platform who promise to teach an entire language or concept in just a few minutes. No meaningful CS concept can be learned in five minutes. These creators enable passive tutorial surfing where viewers watch endless videos without ever actually coding.

Both extremes are harmful. One side mocks beginners for not being cracked, and the other sells the illusion that you can learn a CS degree in three minutes (example). If you commit to either approach, you will handicap your long term growth. The healthy path lies somewhere in the middle.

What Is The Ideal Way To Learn Then?

If you asked this question, you should not have. There is no ideal way to learn CS or any topic. I am not sure if it is due to modern information formatting or if it is simply human nature, but people fixate on finding the optimal method for everything. From searching for the best cookie recipe to the best way to learn C++, the pursuit of optimization often becomes a substitute for actually doing the work.

In my undergraduate Object Oriented Programming course, for example, there was a student who spent more time optimizing his IDE than actually programming. This obsession with perfecting the learning process, or even worse learning stupid, glorified tools, ends up slowing or even preventing real learning.

As a disclaimer, doing a quick search or asking an LLM for recommended textbooks or auditable courses is totally fine. Just do not spend hours creating the perfect roadmap. Start learning instead.

Ok Then What Do I Do?

The best answer is simply, do what you want to do. And if your rebuttal is that you do not know what you want to do, then ask yourself what you have actually tried. If you have not explored many areas of CS, how could you possibly know what interests you?

Read the introductory chapters of a few different textbooks, maybe one on networking, distributed systems, or operating systems, and pick whichever one grabs your attention. Learning any core CS topic will help you in your career, there is no wrong or best choice.

Just start doing things. Do not worry about contributing to PyTorch as your first ML project, also dont watch “learning CUDA In 5 Minutes.” Focus on building, exploring, and experimenting at YOUR OWN level and pace. That is how you actually grow.

A Final Note

If you are finding yourself sputtering in your growth journey as yourself… Why did you embark on this journey? If your answer has to do with finding a better job, or wanting to become a cracked, neckbeard programmer you need to take a mental health walk and reframe your journey. Your answer should be centered around growing as a programmer for the sake of ENJOYMENT. With the “amazing” invention of social media and LinkedIn, programming for fun has simply capsized. Commonly you will find people within a CS degree pursuing things for the sake of a higher salary. While this strategy does work for some people, I highly encourage you to find your fire with programming. Apply your knowledge to things you love. Whether it is creating a B Tree to virtually store your pokemon card collection, or creating a music recommendation algorithm you should never be referring to learning as “work.” If your self learning journey begins to feel like you are slugging through things, something is going wrong! As a last note, if you don’t have hobbies to apply your newfound programming skills on, I advise you get off of Youtube Shorts, IG Reels, and TikTok and explore hobbies before you continue programming…