> no matter how hard you try you can never teach a mouse to understand French.
Maybe because a mouse is not even aware of "French". At least, humans are aware of the universe, they may not understand it completely but they are aware of it.
I feel the same. I live in Africa and I have a deep intuition that technology can help improve people lives here, in particular in health and education fields. I really want to work on it but unfortunately I do nothing about it for the moment. I always have excuses to not try (for example: lack of basic infrastructure will make my ideas irrelevant, my ideas are dumb anyways, even if I build my ideas, there is no way somebody will use it, ...).
I've done the Front End Nanodegree. The most important thing in the Nanodegree is not the certificate but the portfolio. By the time you finish it, you will have a strong portfolio of concrete projects you can show to employers and talk about in interviews. I, myself, didn't land a new job (I'm already full-time employed) but some graduates have already find jobs in web dev after the Nanodegree. Based on their feedback, having a portfolio was determinant in the process.
Take a look at Udacity's nanodegree (Web, iOS, Data science) https://www.udacity.com/nanodegrees. It could be interesting for you. They said it may take 6 to 9 months to complete each.
Maybe because a mouse is not even aware of "French". At least, humans are aware of the universe, they may not understand it completely but they are aware of it.