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There's lots of good advice in other replies re getting up to speed on various CS stuff. But I suspect that it might be the lack of an 'overarching framework' that is perhaps more problematic here? Lots of folk make their own framework. Learn about some productivity / personal-management systems — personally I like David Allen's "Getting Things Done" (it's a book, probably available in e-formats these days), cos its a simple system built around todo lists. I learnt it in the 90s, it's probably changed a bit since then, but probably not much. Once one has something like that to try and help manage things, then it becomes easier to track progress through projects with bigger goals. Then you can google-up any kind of curriculum you like (whether actually an official college/university curriculum, or any arbitrary list of stuff taken from some website), or get a decent book on a topic (books that are part of a college/uni curriculum can be good choices), and put the top level stuff into a list, and work through it, updating/changing the list(s) as your progress. With some stuff, it's ok to get bored and change direction. With other stuff, you might wanna make yourself work through the difficult bits. Depends on the goals, the reasoning behind them, and your motivation. It's also ok to edit lists to be bigger or smaller. I've done this with heaps and heaps of areas of computing, and have learnt a lot over the years. But I accept there's always more to learn, and always folk who will be more expert/experienced in areas I'm new to. Learn from them too, if you can (and want to). You are right that there is more to this than just sitting alone studying/coding. Project management skills, even just for larger personal projects, and the never-ending project of 'personal development', are essential. Find or invent a system that works for you. Use it to achieve whatever goals you have. Review the system weekly/regularly. — If it's the long hours sitting alone part that bothers you, perhaps you are more of a 'people person'. I don't mind coding alone for hours myself, but that's cos I am comfortable with it, can manage myself, and can see my progress towards goals, and I've done it for a long time now (I'm now over 50). I don't have much to suggest if you think you're more of a people-person than I and many techies are, but I'm sure others might. Perhaps coding isn't for you? Perhaps you need to be part of a team? But creating an overarching framework for oneself to learn new stuff is totally do-able, not as difficult as it might seem at first, and well worth doing. Note that a 'full-stack' developer isn't really an easily attainable goal for a beginner, and nor should it necessarily be. It's do-able, but it takes time. Many folk that are 'full-stack' have arrived at that position because they've done databases, server-side / backend stuff, server admin, html/css/js, front-end, etc. (no particular order), on separate projects initially — that's where the true value lies in such a description. Kids who describe themselves as full-stack, probably aren't really — or likely won't have the necessary depth of experience. |
I love computer science and programming in general, so I am not about to give that up. I guess once in a while I need someone to consult or do stuff together with—like when I've been stuck on a bug for a while.
I will try to create that "custom" overarching framework. Hard to get right, but it might be fruitful.