Heard about BTC in July of 2013....ordered a KNC 500gh Jupiter miner July 1st, 2013....turned it on after I got it (filled with rainwater..I was freaking) on
Oct 18th, 2013 and BTC I think was $150 USD...I think I was getting 1 BTC a day...
The reason I got it was, I WAS BORED, I had like 4k of Game of Thrones Swords (book versions) before HBO hit..and said screw it..sold them for 4K
took the other 3k I was gonna put back into the BBS game server (lost gonzo bbs) and figured it made more sense to do this for the REAL 3k or so
investment on my plan to sell the swords (which I did, eventually) thus with sword profits ...real risk was 3k more or less (thank you HBO!)
I figured...a somewhat flat ROI of say 1 year..then figured IF I was lucky ..I'd get like 6 months of income to pay house utils or so..and call it a wash
as a hobby...
Also, looked at how it was being used in Cyprus to get around corrupt gov't and such and figured it would jumpstart the micro-lending loan/club startups that were starting in India
and that was my plan...do a little good...be less bored
of course, the unit ROI'd in like 3 weeks and then by Thanksgiving in the USA (around Nov 25th or so) BTC was $1,100 USD...
and we were off! Damn, I was such a nice newbie with modest dreams, kinda got away from me/us...
anyway, sure beat spending $60 bucks a month in electric cost to get the game server up, simply because I was bored!
A lot of folks, stumbled into BTC in this manner in 2013, very few of us thought it would be much more than a 'niche' hobby etc
good luck on your study
brad