I've been lurking for years. I can't believe I never registered. I always assumed I had, but my password registry has no record of it
I'm a molecular biologist and physician by training, but I always intended to be a biomedical inventor on the side. I was a builder, hobbyist and amateur scientist of all types growing up, and had intended to do biomedical engineering as an undergrad. Alas I APed out of basic calc/bio/chem/phys, so my first semester was all hard-core engineering -- and as those of you who did E school know, that can be dry/dreary with none of the joy I knew from my hobbies -- especially circuit theory! I wouldn't have believed you could suck the fun out of that with an amorous vampire! The upper classmen assured me that it would be more of the same with maybe ONE optional practical course, especially in bio-med, because it had more required courses than any other major in the university
I dropped out and started a small business doing hardware/software solutions for the Apple ][ (the IBM PC didn't exist yet), which was the cool "open platform" of its time.: its cover was even held on with industrial Velcro, not screws, to encourage users to open it up. I quit developing for Apple when its focus shifted to the Mac, whose philosophy I abhorred. In my fanboy eyes, Apple made *itself* "Big Brother, around the time they presented the infamous Big Brother ad IMPLYING that IBM was! At least IBM let you install a hard drive. Apple wouldn't let Mac owners have hard drives for years, because Apple didn't make one--and you didn't dare risk voiding your Mac warranty, because early Mac power supplies might blow out every few months. (Apple II, III, and Lisa owners installed them anyway)
Electronics had always been a handy sideline for me, right up through medical school. I did lab designs for college research labs, and other projects, but it was just "one of those things you do" alongside any number of hobbies and skills: chemistry, computers, cars... I was into everything (and not just things beginning with C) .. okay, "flying". There. That's not a "C"!
I did ultimately patent one quite commercially unsuccessful biomedical device, but it had nothing to do with electronics, and I'm not particularly interested in biological/medical applications now. I've just been returning to it on a hobby level, and in recent years, I have slowly been outfitting the proper electronics lab I always wanted -- but I've hardly done anything with it all. I tend to spend my limited hobby time fixing things (I can't stand to see things broken or needlessly discarded) and improvising solution -- my greatest joy.
I've been taking a lot of online courses (Agarwal's 6.002 at MIT, the Stanford AI course, a few Coursera CompSci, etc.) but as far as electronics goes, I've found myself doing pretty much what I always did: improvising, making modest PCBs as needed (for many reasons, I primarily use the photo resist method, with laser-printed acetate) I guess I'm looking for something big to throw myself into -- not a big project (pretty much any DIY CNC or rapid prototyping set-up can suck up all any hobbyist's time) but a field of interest.