One of the few worthy things I felt I got out of school was the moment I grokked the whole stack from sequential logic to the program counter and control logic from a cpu, how each clock tick formed a new circuit. That was really mentally expanding. I got it from reading a prescribed book for a class I wasn't taking from a professor who was a tool, so it is possible to learn these things outside of class. In fact, that's where the real learning, IMO, happens.
I dug around and cant find it; I graduated a while ago. But, the more I thought about it, it was actually 2 books: One on how to design a cpu on an fpga, similar to this one:http://www.amazon.com/VHDL-Implimentation-16-bit-microproces... And another book on digital design, specifically, digital sequential circuits. If you google that term you will find a few links to pdfs to study. Finally, "Computer Organization and Design" by John Hennessey is very recommended.
