I agree. Veering slightly off on a tangent but another major (and oft-forgotten and undervalued, I think) advantage of the degree path is that a good course wil

I agree. Veering slightly off on a tangent but another major (and oft-forgotten and undervalued, I think) advantage of the degree path is that a good course will lead you down the best and possibly most efficient paths of discovery for the important things, and also give you a bit of a kick in directions you maybe wouldn't naturally go on your own, but which turn out to be very valuable after some uphill struggling. These are things you can figure out, and discipline yourself into, but on your own time and with a fair probability you won't do a great job, when self-learning. With a degree much of that work is outsourced to specialists who have a lot more context and ability to iterate on experience, and that gives you a much smoother path to just focusing on your main job - learning. So, a good compromise, and the reason I ask this question, is to get recommendations on what to learn, then decide myself how I will do it and on what schedule, etc.