Theory is great!
Personally I love reading books. Im a bit of a “business-nerd” so most of the books i read are about business or business related. Reading book´s give me new ideas and inspiration about how to change things for the better in my company.
Please see “Must Read Upstart Books” to see some of the books I have truly enjoyed.
At the moment im taking a course at University of Oslo in Software Engineering and Systems Design and I must say its strange to be in lectures again after three years as a fulltime entrepreneur. The main difference is the detachment I feel between theory and practice. I´m the kind of guy that prefers building the flat pack from Ikea without looking at the drawing. I like getting my hands dirty when I do things. It is just so much more satisfying to approach research, learning and project in this manner.
Luckily im taking the course because I´m getting my hands dirty with a new IT project and I seem able to apply all the theory into practice because I have something specific to put these new thoughts and learning towards a real project. When I was at university back in 2001-2006 the homework, projects and test were mostly related to “theory”, meaning not REAL world challenges. This brings distance to learning and makes learning much more challenging.
I wish all my fellow students were also working on something of their own that was related to the course so they could put all the theory into practice as well 🙂