To be honest, I don't think I (or a majority of people) could learn theory without help. Math and theoretical CS are pretty hard. I can't count the number of ti

To be honest, I don't think I (or a majority of people) could learn theory without help. Math and theoretical CS are pretty hard. I can't count the number of times that I've had questions that only a TA could answer for me. To be fair, there are resources now like mathoverflow, but I've found having a knowledgeable human you can have a lengthy discussion with is invaluable.