I think one of the reasons why people are encouraged to learn programming on their own over other disciplines is because it is perhaps the most flexible field f

I think one of the reasons why people are encouraged to learn programming on their own over other disciplines is because it is perhaps the most flexible field for a large swathe of the learning-styles spectrum. Are you the kind who learns best from observing large complex solutions produced by someone else and tinkering with it? Available. Read from textbooks and answer prepackaged problems with definite solutions? Aplenty. Prefer to build something from scratch learning what you need as you go along? Perfectly suited. And you can prove your competency easily: "here's a thing I built using what I learned and/or I understand how this works perfectly well and I can talk about it." The skills for other career paths do not have this confluence of circumstances. Learning accounting is a lot of bookwork, you can't just "dive in". Learning to be a car mechanic, you have to get dirty, you can't just read a bunch of textbooks. You want to become a martial artist, you can't just kick a tree a bunch and become an expert. But you can do the equivalent for programming and be just fine.