One of my goals is lifelong learning.
Since finishing school over a decade ago, most of my learning has taken place on the job or through reading technical books in the last decade. I often feel that books provide great surveys and details on theory (which are important!) but they’re light on useful information for practitioners.
Coursera
Coursera was the first experience I had with online classes. I’ve done three courses on Coursera: Computer Networks ( available here), Algorithms Part I, and Algorithms Part II. These are college courses that are available online. The Coursera experience worked well for me by introducing broad, completely new concepts with world class lecturers. For me, there wasn’t much practical value in the assignments/exercises because of the time commitment required.
Coursera is great to introduce a broad new set of topics and most importantly, learn how to ask questions about the subject.
I didn’t attend a top-tier engineering school, but online courses helped me get through interview processes at “big” tech firms.
YouTube/Twitch
YouTube and Twitch are amazing resources for learning new skills. Some of the GDB debugging videos are what I’ve been watching lately!
lynda.com
Our local public library partners with lynda.com- the courses there are free. This is a tremendous, low-risk opportunity to take guided tours of new technologies!