They definitely required programming, but were understanding of any spin-up time it took to get on board. I did wind up spending large amounts of time outside r

They definitely required programming, but were understanding of any spin-up time it took to get on board. I did wind up spending large amounts of time outside reading and tinkering along with blog posts, wikipedia, and even good old-fashioned books. I took some of my class notes on equations and implemented them in a variety of ways as an exercise to get used to the language while keeping the engineering knowledge relevant. For instance, when I was blazing past a variance calculation, I was surprised to learn that catastrophic cancellation could occur in a naive implementation. Not because I "got the answer wrong" per se, but because a computer has limits (in this case: precision), and there's no way (in my mode of learning) for that kind of information to stick unless I have my hands dirty in the code. To go back to the languages though, I stuck to major ones and played with Python, C/C++, and Fortran. Python and Fortran I used online references to play with and learn, while with C++ I bit the bullet and read C++ Primer which is really hefty but I found to be very thorough (and a great reference).