> up to the point of General Relativity.

Putting in a plug for MIT OCW 8.962 [1]. I also had this itch, and was able to find time during the pandemic to work through the course (at about 1/2 speed). But true to what others are saying, life intruded for the last few lectures, so still have some items on my todo list. I thought Scott Hughes laid out the math with terrific clarity, with just the right amount of joviality. It is not for everyone, but if you have a suitable background it may turn "scratch an itch" into the obsession that it has done to me.

And to make the obligatory on-topic comment: I'm 61yo. Now get off my lawn.

[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/8-962-general-relativity-spring-...

Thanks! Yeah I planned to use MIT OCW for my education, at least the first 3-4 pre-requisite courses, before I even consider registering in an independent program in some University.

BTW I hope you are going to get more free time in a few years so that you can come back and enjoy the education again.

I'm over 40 and even though I mostly manage/lead now I have time to do programming and plenty of math. I still see improvement mentally (not so much physically anymore), but also a lot of improvement in skills I neglected when I was younger like interpersonal skills and sales. I'm also learning a new language and read more than ever. Sometimes I feel like I'm less sharp, but I wonder if that's because I'm doing so much more.

My tricks that I don't always follow, is work out every day, get enough sleep, and stay off of most short form social media. I realized when I was on short form social it would zap a lot of time and kill any focus I had.

I've always toyed with the idea of studying Computer Science since I taught myself how to code.

Hell of a lot more difficult now when I need to work and don't really have the same amount of time to dedicate to studying. Hell of a lot easier when you're younger, your whole life basically revolves around the education, and any job you have generally fits around your school life rather than the other way round.

Yeah it was really a surprise to me when I realized that my energy declined to the point that I couldn't work on my side projects for the down days. Then I counted how many days I have for the rest of my life (up to 75) and this dreaded me a lot.

And it got worse after my son was born a few years ago. I would count the number of weeks available, not the days, because there has been whole weeks that I couldn't do anything. After all those are two full-time jobs.

As for your CS education, I'd recommend getting into some side projects and explore from there. If you go to a school, it's going to take too many courses.

I'm in my late 40s and I've found that my desire for working on side projects after work is affected by how engaged I am mentally at work. When I'm building new features/products from scratch and I'm having to figure out architecture and learn more about whatever language I'm coding in, I get more amped to do side projects at home. When I'm bored and just bug fixing and dealing with more mundane things, I have no desire to do any more coding after work. Something about being more engaged gets my brain in a state that I can keep going for the rest of the day until I need to pull myself away from the computer because it's 2am and I should have been asleep hours ago. I should note that I don't have children so the only "obligation" I have is to spend time with my partner and eat dinner, which I enjoy doing, of course. She usually starts getting ready for bed around 10pm and that's when I start coding. I do have some bad sleep patterns though, doesn't matter if I'm coding or not, which is probably not healthy. I have that revenge nighttime procrastination thing real bad.

Have you considered doing your side projects before work?

It takes me one call in the morning, of me saying for the hundreth time in the past 8 months that the integration is still missing data, to get me off the rails for the day. I know at 10AM that I won't touch anything else after work.

Been contemplating starting early and dedicating "the best hours" to myself.

That absolutely works for me! I play multiple instruments and have found that the early morning is the best time mentally for me to devote uninterrupted time to practice and playing. I’m also fortunate enough to have a basement with another floor between my cacophony and my sleeping family

(Not original replier)

That was something I have considered for a while, but then figured out it is unrealistic because I have a kid. But original replier probably can do if he/she doesn't have one.

I'm in the same boat.

I realized that frustration from work usually spills over to other parts of my life, not surprising as work is usually the first big thing we do during a day. I'm exactly like you -- when I have a lot of frustration from work, then I wouldn't want to work on side projects. It has nothing to do with how many hours I have.

I also have some bad sleep patterns as I only sleep about 5-6 hours every night most of the time.

I think, it might be useful to learn some mental skills to compartment one's mental state. If I could somehow put that frustration from work into a separate space without it spilling all over the ship, it would definitely help a lot. But so far I don't know how to do it -- plus I have a kid so I can't chill down after work until late night.

Exercise goes a long way to keep up energy levels after work.

Yeah being doing that for a while. Doesn't work as expected as the primary sources of frustration cannot be removed.

I've been going through various MIT OCW lecture series as I work on a personal programming project.

Esp. good were:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-001-structure-and-interpretati...

and

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-042j-mathematics-for-computer-...

Plugging Georgia Tech's online masters program - I did it over the course of 4 years while working - can take 1 class a semester - and it's very cheap for a high quality masters

I'm going to second ativzzz. It's a great program. I did it the same way: 1 class a semester over 4 years.

> Hell of a lot more difficult now when I need to work and don't really have the same amount of time to dedicate to studying.

Not really. You'll find that as an experienced programmer, you have a massive advantage at times in your classes.

Any time there's a question of "what are the expected value of the max eigenvalue for a random matrix from such and such a distribution" I can answer it in 5 minutes with matlab and ChatGPT (and I know I can answer it). Making a animated GIF with successive approximation of a function by Fourier transform, no problem. Integrating by parts with hyperbolic functions in it? so slow, I'm googling the quadratic formula while the kids are yelling out the integration steps in real time.

The only way I've been able to get things done is to first allocate time for the things I want to study right when I wake up, then do as much as I can to learn them. The only requirement is to try to understand the material. Putting deadlines and/or milestones in the beginning can sometimes discourage people from starting.

"If you can retire around 35-40" really? If you can retire that young, you probably don't need any advice.

You can't blame an old man trying to give advices to people who don't need them...

Achieving financial independence and early retirement does not mean one no longer needs any advice about life. Indeed, because those people have a longer retirement, they might ponder things like the meaning of life much more than someone who's living paycheck to paycheck and has to devote all brain cycles to survival. And there are so many options for those who retire at 40 that they genuinely need advice about what to do, how to find what matters most to them, and how to go about doing the things they had always wanted to do but couldn't.

These people have succeeded in making money and that's all. But life is so much more than just making money.

People's financial goals range wildly, which also impacts on when they can retire. Some people don't care about some combination of having a car, or expensive living quarters, or fancy food, or a family.

I found 'So You Want to Learn Physics...' helpful: https://www.susanrigetti.com/physics

Agreed on prioritizing financial freedom.

Thanks. I did read that but found it to be too broad. I set a very narrow target and hopefully everything can be wrapped up in 8-10 Math/Physics courses.

If you’re going to try this route, I’d also recommend prioritizing your family and/or life partner with all your remaining energy.

Grinding is soul-sucking, and having someone at home was the only way I made it through the roughest patches.

I semi-retired in the 35-40 range, but if my choices were being retired and single or working but with my family, I’d 100% take the latter.

> please please prioritize financial freedom

This advice could really backfire badly if taken literally by young people.

Optimizing for financial reward early in your career could be the surest way to end up in a dead end from a mission/purpose/domain/skills perspective.

20 years later, you realize you burned two precious decades accumulating money that, honestly, does not help you at all make sense or use of the next two.

> 20 years later, you realize you burned two precious decades accumulating money that, honestly, does not help you at all make sense or use of the next two.

Ah, but it does. Speaking as someone approaching fifty, you feel every penny. Everything about your financial situation weighs into your decision-making, makes different options possible or impossible. It changes which jobs you can take, and which jobs you can turn down. It affects how much time you can take between jobs. It affects how much energy you pour into keeping your job or chasing a promotion versus investing your energy in education or other things you find satisfying.

People worry that they will accidentally pursue money with such single-minded focus that they turn off every other part of their soul, and miss out on what they "really" want to do. But I don't think that's possible. Replace money with anything else: fame, family, intellectual achievement, hedonism. If you try to dedicate yourself 100% to one thing when something else is important to you, you'll hear the voice in the back of your head. You'll feel what it is, and if you ignore it then, that's on you.

If you don't hear that voice yet, lay down the foundation that will give you the freedom to follow it when you finally do.

Yea, there is a huge distance between "saving enough money to retire comfortably" and "letting wealth accumulation dominate every decision you make." And, honestly, most people don't even get to the first one.

You're absolutely right. I realize my comment could be understood in many various ways.

My point was that, at some point, money has a negative effect on your career. Shooting for the top percentile of revenue can take you off track for life.

But you are saying that having a few hundred thousands bucks when you hit 40-50 is a life-changer and you are absolutely right as well.

Our point of views are not incompatible and were not captured by my first comment.

Its easy to think you have too much money in your twenties. I used to save every other paycheck. But wait until you have a family and a mortgage. The money goes very quickly.

It might backfire for sure, but being financially independent gives you freedom to figure that out for the rest of the life.

IMO it's a lot better than the situation I myself am in right now, when I can clearly see myself working my ass off for the next 20-25 years in domains I totally hate, and then hopefully I can start working on interesting things when I'm ... 65?

I'd further argue that the only downside of my strategy is that you already have a clear non-monetary objective but decided to go with the money for 20 years. That's definitely a bad thing, and that's why in my original reply I rooted this out -- if you already have an objective, go for it.

Only if you get a rest of your life. While most do I've known more that one person who didn't make it to 40. Worse those that do all srart reporting their body is starting to fail. If you have not done some things by 40 it may be too late to ever do them.

You can't forego savings because "I might die at 40". That's really not a sensible plan. It's a balancing act, but I'd rather have saved too much and die a little early, than not save enough and somehow live to 100.

But accumulating and saving always comes at a cost. Is it worth to earn more money, but spend less time with your family for example? It's a delicate balancing act and you never know where the right balance is

I agree 100%. There is a balance you want enough savings for 'a rainy day' and also enjoy the rest of your life. retirement is only part of enjoping your life.

the important point is don't get so lost in saving money that you don't enjoy now.

Won't expound on my life story, but this is massively overlooked. You can't just prioritize money without taking into account the massive sacrifices it will require in your life. I spent a long, long time becoming successful in careers that I hated, only to burn out and do the career I knew I wanted to do since I was old enough to think and remember. Except now I have wasted decades of my life that I will never get back.

The majority of your life is spent working so you absolutely MUST find it fulfilling or you will burn out (at best) or destroy your body and mind as a sacrifice to the insatiable Mammon.

There is nothing wrong with doing a job you don't like. However you need to ensure that it doesn't burn you out. Work enough to get the money you need to live. Then do things you like. Many people do this: there are a lot of jobs people don't enjoy but they have to be done so someone does them.

Even people who find a job they love often find after 10-15 years they are sick of doing it all the time. This is likely to happen to you unless you are careful not to let your job alone be what defines you. This is normal.

Don't get yourself into a job you hate. (part of this is not being so picky you hate everything!) however liking - much less loving - your job is optional. Then go home and do something else for fun.

It depends a lot of where you came from. If you are coming from a poor background, without any perspective of the occasional help from parents or a possible inheritance, I'd say prioritize financial security. Of course, you can accept the occasional lower salary but with better career prospects here and there, but sometimes this is a mirage, and a lot of time, better pay comes with better career prospects.

If you didn't come from a somewhat privileged background chances are you started your career with more professional debt, without a rich contact network, you're probably a bit too humble to negotiate wages and even narratives like "when I started my business I had come from a working class family, and had to scrap by raising 80k from my relatives to start my business" are out of your reality. So, prioritize being financially secure first.

This angst about a sense of purpose is basically a privileged class malady, if you are poor our friend Maslow will ensure you have more pressing issues to care about first.

I mean school debt where I said professional debt.

I made a lot of sacrifices and experienced some serious personal pain to achieve modest financial independence by age 35 (not "FAT" by any means, but well beyond the average American), and it was worth it. I'm still working, but only because my former career momentum has carried me into a position where I'm paid a small fortune. I would never do any kind of normal engineering job for a normal income these days.

My attitude and the way my brain processes things is completely different. Getting laid off or fired goes from something you might fear or see as a bad thing to a neutral or even positive event that just encourages you to go spend your time in a different way for as long as you want.

20 years of bad habits facilitated by a given lifestyle can also be very hard to break. Not many can manage duly accumulating the savings while completely isolating themselves from what they work on, who they work with, and how all of that impacts their worldview.

And that's not even considering health. 20 years of being in a bad mental place (stress is bad, but a perceived lack of purpose and agency might well be worse) will leave its marks.

There's also a non-zero chance you'll die before year 20. I agree with the premise that seeking financial independence should be a significant factor in career/life decisions, but if you would be filled with regret by finding out it will be cut short at year 18, you're too singularly focused.

Having the money is far, far better than _not_ having money to help you "make sense or use of the next two decades". If you don't, both the sense and use are narrowed to being chained to a job indefinitely into the future.

> you realize you burned two precious decades accumulating money that, honestly, does not help you at all make sense or use of the next two

You are describing some extreme case of money chasing and/or complete ignorance to everything else. Having the "luxury" to be covered financially for the rest of your life allows you to pursue whatever goals you have in mind at mid-life. If you are susceptible to not knowing what you want, having less money won't help you find out but having more money might.

Is it any better to know what you want to do for the next 2 decades and not ever be able to afford do it? From a practical perspective you are still missing the opportunities you want or dream of, except you're also doing it with little or no financial buffer for the things you need.

I see this argument a lot, i think no one is right. you just need to pick a away to approach life and deal with it.

> honestly, does not help you at all make sense or use of the next two.

Why?

Money can't buy you a sense of purpose, especially if that purpose would largely involve non-monetary aspects.

The thing, being poor doesn't buy one a sense of purpose too. Money for sure doesn't solve the issue, but it gives you all the freedom to solve it for the rest of your life.

Damn I wish I had a million so that I could just drop my job and twitch my coding and gaming streams 12/7. I can't do that.

Absolutely. Money (at least some amount, at least for most people) is necessary, but not sufficient for a fulfilled life.

I believe most people having that million wouldn't spend it to find the fulfillment in life, but would end up increasing their life style by slacking off, drugs, expensive cars and items, etc. And the million would be gone in months and you would be left with just bad habits, dopamine hangover and no idea of the further direction in life.

Yay, do it! I'm in linear algebra right now (midterm in 40 minutes) and I'm over 40. I went back because I always regretted not taking more higher level math. It's been a lot of work, but very rewarding. My kids (age 7 and 5) think it's pretty cool to see dad working on his TI-89 and Notability on iPad.

I was running into the same issue. I wanted to get into deeeplearning but my math skills had atrophied. go check out mathacademy.com. its no where near the level of time investment that going back to college is and you will learn a lot!

If you have the discipline, you can create a lesson plan with an LLM without spending an arm and a leg.

Thanks. I definitely will teach myself some of the pre-requisites before registering in University. I need to prove to myself that I can sit down, take some course, complete the coursework + assignments + exams on MIT courseware, before committing anything that costs $$.

Math Academy is really all you need. 30 minutes per day is enough, though more time will mean faster progress.

You would still very likely need human input and help. LLMs will hallunicate badly on problems just a bit more difficult than the very standard ones (first-hand experience with math).

I got excited to do this a couple years ago. (early 30s) Time and energy were a real killer.

Physics and Math in a formal setting like school is rigorous, not fun. I found it really hard to stay motivated. I don't know how I would practically use that knowledge, i would never contribute anything scientific. It would take years of grinding through foundational math and physics to get there.

Oftentimes they're not even rigorous. At least in the math setting, many professors excuse their student's lack of comprehension on complex material when it's really bad teaching. Some attempts at explaining proofs are laughable and although their conclusions may be correct, because the covered theorems were proven by those much smarter than them, the steps taken to get there rarely follow the tight logical sequencing needed by those learning the material.

More proof that old boomers don't get what its like to be a modern, young adult. I was just texting with friends about this at the coffee shop this morning while making plans for this weekend. Boss is interruping by goat-yoga mindfullness session, asking me to come into the office an hour this month. Who has time for this?

You olds have all the money, all the time.

I wish I had all the money and all the time! I don't, alas...

I know it sounds stupid but I started to but lottery tickets, not to win, because statistically it is impossible, but just to give me hope, because lottery is the only thing in the world that can land a mountain of cash in one shot, with a very small investment. Nothing else can do that.

That's why humans purchase lottery tickets all the time throughout history. It's too cheer themselves up.

I found a cheaper way. I walk around the city for a couple hours every weekend with the hopes of randomly finding a winning lottery ticket.

Why not buy out of money options in companies that you know with spare money? Better odds and good payouts if you hit it right.

Needs too many correct bets or too much $$ to get a few million of returns. You can win a lottery of 50 million with just a few dollars! But I do think this is an interesting strategy. I might try it out just for fun.

Anyway I'm half joking. I do buy lottery but it is just to improve the mood of the day. Oh a good mood for a few hours is so important to keep being sane.

It is impossible to truly understand General Relativity after the age of 35.

I strongly doubt this. It’s rare and we have all sorts of credible theories about why it’s rare, but the decline of so-called fluid intelligence is mostly Flynn Effect: people are getting better at taking tests.

It is a possibility I actually agree with, because a true understanding probably requires a lot more than taking some classes. It probably needs a PHD on Cosmology or something else.

But let's say a shallow understanding is good enough...even just completing a General Relativity graduate course with good mark is good enough.

You should not have entertained that comment.

There is absolutely zero evidence that 35 is some mystical cut off for "understanding." That poster has NO clue what they are talking about. Seriously, feel free to ignore that comment.

As for practical advice for learning, you should look into learning how to learn and then spend about 1-2 year habituating to the proper way to acquire knowledge. The science says your (not just you, practically everyone) current intuitions and habits are incorrect; as evidenced by almost everyone in this post. Youtuber Justin Sung is pretty much second to none in terms of a practical program for acquiring these skills.

If you want general guidelines to follow to determine who's telling you the truth and who isn't use the following wikipedia article to guide you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_learning#The_principles...

Note: Simply reading that article and "understanding" what it is saying is not equivalent to having a study program that implements these things, and having a program that implements these things is not the same thing as actually executing on and habituating to said program. This process takes many months to years.

Best of luck.

Is the joke because Einstein published his findings on General Relativity at 36?

Devil's advocate: how many years did it take him to get to publishing this work?

I often ponder if I have the energy to go back to school. I am employed by MIT at one of the labs where I do research for embedded security. As a consequence, they offer free classes you can pick up. I am yet to actually take advantage of that yet but your comment has me thinking the same thing. I turn 36 in a couple days!

>>please please prioritize financial freedom if you don't have a clear objective in mind

This. To Infinity.

Please prioritise financial freedom. I missed a few steps, but as I get old, I realise this is the biggest blocker to almost anything.

Money == Free time.