Self-study again!

I've spent many hours over the past few years trying to figure out the optimal bank of knowledge that I need in order to become highly competent at everything I'm interested in. I've constantly revised my self-study sequence, and it's taken me much longer than ideal to get to the point I'm at now -- and I'm still quite behind. But with this most recent layoff (hooray for round 2), I've got some time to re-organize and re-commit. 

My end goal is to build my entire dream theme park resort virtually in a game engine, complete with schematics to show its feasibility. I will do this entirely on my own. In case something happens to the game engine itself, as much logic and asset data as possible will be abstracted out into engine-independent classes and folders. Once it's built virtually, I might get some rich person or company to build it for me, if they are impressed enough. If not, or if that takes away my creative rights to my rides or something, I'll figure out a way to do it myself. 

Thus, my self-study will include the following two principles:

• Reviewing concepts I've already learned. I'm dissatisfied with my past undergraduate performance and thus want to review and fully master everything. 
• Learning the concepts I missed, from what I should've studied in addition to what I actually did. 

After finishing my MSCS, I am taking some gap time to just work...somewhere, and do the following on the side:

• Google IT and CompTIA certification, as well as possibly CCNA and something with pentesting. 
• PLC dojo
• A post-graduate certificate in mechatronics engineering 
• Game design and other software projects
• Self-study -- CS, digital art, ECE, math/physics, and ME
• most important: Get my art and writing off the ground...finally. And SLEEP and REST lol. 
• play a bit of music, do some hardcore gaming, lift and run, keep up with friends and fandoms, ride lots of rides. I'm actually a faster runner now than I was in high school, at least at the half-marathon which is my main event. And my physique, while far from what I want, looks better than it ever has before. That grad school stress-eating pudge is gone forever, thank goodness. 

The eventual goal will be to finally get some legitimate engineering education, first on my own via MIT Open CourseWare and the OSEE, studying both EE/CS and ME (probably "major" in the former and "minor" in the latter), and second via an online program part-time while working -- but I'm talking maybe 3-5 years out at an absolute minimum for that, because I'm exhausted right now. For now, I just want some zero-stress free OCW crap. I don't care if it's hard because I'll do it self-paced and open-book. No matter how long it takes. And I don't care if I won't get any formal recognition for it. Our society today values accolades and learning as a means to an end (instead of something to be enjoyed on its own) way too much. In other words, I might say screw further formal education, I'm exhausted and I'm done -- but at least I've finally gained the understanding I wanted, via these online courses. Career goals are great, and they're part of the motivation here, but what I want more than anything is understanding. I want to know the computer. From the bottom to the top. And its applications as well. 

I should've double-majored but oh well, I didn't, I was too scared, and now I have to deal with that. I want to focus on mechatronics, more than ME or EE directly, because I'm interested in the synthesis of the two, combined with coding and CS. It also looks pretty versatile. No such programs exist online right now that have that sweet ABET accreditation, so in all likelihood I'll have to do a BSEE via FIU online instead, unless some online-friendly accredited school adds a minor in ME (I don't think I want to major in it -- calculating the stresses on beams or whatever is not nearly as interesting to me as coding and circuits, but I do want to learn it) at some hypothetical future point. Then, I could find an online MS in mechatronics engineering or robotics. MS level seems to be slightly more common. If someone adds an online BS or even BS/MS program online that is actually accredited, and not a "technology" program, then I'll do that. I've got time. And plenty of polymathic types get several degrees in a variety of fields -- if I do it while working, there will be little downside other than the energy cost. I am kinda lost in my own world these days, as always. So much has passed me by -- all the rapid marriages at BYU that made me realize I would never fit in there, two layoffs basically in a row after only a year at each company, a failed internship (though with a successful one afterwards), all the social things that I couldn't figure out how to do myself. So it's just me, my studies, and my daydreams. As it was, as it is, as it likely always will be. 

I'll drop my self-study sequence here in a bit:

[add here lmao]