I feel the same. I was trying to make some "art" with shaders.

I was inspired by Zbrush and Maya, but I don't think I can learn what is necessary to build even a small clone of these gigantic pieces of software, unless I work with this on a day to day basis.

The performance of Zbrush is so insane... it is mesmerizing. I don't think I can go deep into this while treading university.