100% this. Problems from work are always realistic and they give you a push to solve them well. Side projects work too, but to a lesser extent. I could never g

100% this. Problems from work are always realistic and they give you a push to solve them well. Side projects work too, but to a lesser extent. I could never get through an Algorithm class (self-taught), but that didn't prevent me from learning and implementing some non-trivial algos for my side projects.