Hi, This will be a tldr. I am a senior PhD student this fall 2013. I have always wanted to sharpen my C++ OOP skills and overall programming skills. I'd like

Hi, This will be a tldr. I am a senior PhD student this fall 2013. I have always wanted to sharpen my C++ OOP skills and overall programming skills. I'd like to think I have a good grasp of computing systems since my phd is centered around computer architecture/vlsi. But in most times, when I read other people's code, mostly simulators with 50K-100K lines, I have a hard time following through as I think my fundamentals are not really strong. I spend about half the time learning new language intricacies I didn't know rather than understanding how the whole thing works. I have made some efforts into advancing my own understanding of the languages by studying in my own time (currently on Accelerated CPP by Koehnig) but then a conference paper deadline suddenly comes up and I have to reallocate my efforts. If not a conference, my professor will be writing a proposal and needs my help. I feel like there is always something that takes away my focus in learning. Would I make a good candidate for hacker school? Sometimes I feel like you guys are looking for Android/iOS/Ruby/Php programmers, although you have clearly stated that HS is language-agnostic, I still feel like I'd be the lone wolf in HS trying to learn advanced C++..