[franl]

Awesome point. Do you have any reading/strategy you'd suggest? One thing I'm doing is open courseware like CS50 from Harvard. Do you think that sort of work is worthwhile with regard to what you mentioned? Study algorithms? Do topcoder challenges? Project Euler? I'm open to whatever it takes :)

[ghostdiver]

Top Coder challenges may work for you, reading some books will help in solving problems(like Cormen Introduction to Algorithms). That may help only about "theory".

In case of learning the more technical terms, open source projects are the way to go, no need to be active committer, try to understand the workflow and language they use.

[franl]

Awesome man, thanks! I actually got Algorithms by Sedgewick and Wayne instead. The reviews on Cormen said it's the seminal resource on algorithms, but a little too advanced for the self-directed (non-genius) learner.