I have institutional experience. I have lived in the trading capital of the world (Chicago). What you have to do to speed up the learning process, is manage risk and become proficient with coding language. I believe that its imperative to use it to your benefit to test and believe that you can remove the noise and the randomness of the Forex market. This thing is the wild wild west, and no one should risk their time reading forums of people who know very little and spend their free time arguing. Thats just me. I think that Coursera is a great place to start, and sign up for Phython courses. This will not only help you build strategies 10x-50x better than discretionary systems, and also allow you to show the certification on your resume, if your so inclined to get into the real world. If your feeling motivated, add R. Read Books on Ernest Chan, Howard Bandy. View websites like Quantopian, Quandl, CloudQuant. Listen to podcasts like ChatwithTraders and MacroVoices, and RealVisionTV. You will have to pay for some stuff, ie Data. These will allow you to test strategies immediately, good luck.