Up-voted even though I don't think you are 100% correct. Its not so much a thesis that is needed, but something similar. For example, I am embarking on an inte

Up-voted even though I don't think you are 100% correct. Its not so much a thesis that is needed, but something similar. For example, I am embarking on an intensive self-study course, in a lot of different subjects. Instead of a thesis, I have given myself a bunch of objective, observable outcomes. These are 'things' that can be observed and/or measured objectively. Due to the fact that I have a lot of varied subjects I want to learn/understand more about, I decided the best way to make my learning more efficient is to combine subjects as much as possible into these OO outcomes. Here are a couple of the outcomes I am working on, with the subjects that relate to them. Herb Garden: Biology, chemistry(making own fertilisers etc) agriculture history, hydrology, genetics, molecular gastronomy, design and geometry Risk-like game of different time eras: Military history, python, databases, data visualizations, dashboard design, social network design, math- probability and statistics, cartography skills, 2D artificial intelligence(bots), application of a few books on mil strategy: Art of War, Book of 5 Rings, Warfighting, and On War. I am hoping that by having concrete things to build, it will force me not only to learn the subjects needed, but to really get a proper understanding of them. I have taking this path because I realized recently that I have been starting to become a "Cargo-Cult Programmer". I can build software and get results, but not really understand why the results are what they are. I would like to change that. Edit: typo