Given the vastness of the field my advice would be to narrow your focus. And specifically, focus on an area that will hold your interest and seek out the best r

Given the vastness of the field my advice would be to narrow your focus. And specifically, focus on an area that will hold your interest and seek out the best resources in that area. When I was younger I really wanted to make computer games and picked up Andre LaMothe's Teach Yourself Game Programming. I wound up reading it cover to cover and experimenting with many of the concepts. My career wound up going in a completely different direction but I learned more from that stint of sustained interest in a good book, than many of my university classes. Second advice is that once you've done a rote exercise find some way to push the boundaries of it. I've found that anything I can do to extend or customize the example helps engage my brain with the material and often leads to learning new things.