Yes, I was leaning more towards the "personal project" idea as well, something around document understanding. I subscribe to the "learning by doing/immersion" philosophy as well (upto a large extent).

The problem with projects is one's understanding tends to go more and more specialised, and collaborating/connecting with other ML engineers requires a broader knowledge base sometimes.

Also, for giving advice and useful inputs to others (on their projects), I feel a balanced knowledge base is useful.

Hence the question.