If bitcoin is fun for you then great, but don't expect to learn a lot from it. Downloading free command line software and getting it running isn't exactly highly educational.
I guess at the end of the day it's whatever you make of it. I thought it would be worthwhile setting up an Arch install specifically for mining (I'd only had limited experience with "Linux" (Ubuntu) up until that point) - I learnt a great deal about the internals of Linux from doing that, and it's definitely been worthwhile as I am now using a fresh Arch install for just about every project that I've done since then.