My personal answer? Do both. I have quit my day job in order to start my own business, and I further my study for a degree at night (previously I have a diploma). It's a long story and i have my reason. But for me, why choose when you can have both. At least if the business failed, I have my degree (and I do plan to get a master afterward).

But of course, this is my personal opinion.

Not to confuse you, when I said business, I mean freelance business. Starting a company is another game altogether, and depend on how you plan to do things, you might not have much free time to study (one of the reason I quit was time, not having enough free time and energy to study).

I don't regret going business first, but I wouldn't recommend it either.

If you can get your brain to fit through college - and I second the recommendation of mental health assistance - than you should.

A degree in CS will make you minimally competent to do computer stuff.

If you can, I strongly recommend putting your spare time into non-computer stuff.

When I was a teenager, I spent a lot of my spare time studying languages, drawing a comic, took writing and art classes, etc. All of it has served me very well at work.

Quote: Original post by Benjamin GD
I changed the topic. Reread the top post. But anyway, give me examples of what college would teach me that I don't know. What, trigonometry, quaternions, vectors, matrices? I believe I understand those well enough. But maybe your right, I think there's many times when I have to research more math before I can get straight to work. But can't I just use the internet? That's what the internet is for.

College is a lot less about learning facts and much more about learning concepts, people, and yourself.

I could have easily learned everything in my textbooks at college without actually attending college. I would be far less of a person for it. I would have less friends, I would have very little experience with people coming from different backgrounds , and I would have missed out on an absolutely astounding number of life experiences. College is a lot more than just the classes you take.

I was a roommate with a golf enterprise management major, a packaging major, and a business major while playing rugby with a bunch of construction majors; and all of these people played video games at least casually. know your audience much? I'll tell you right now hardcore gamers like you or I are not the bulk of the market so don't think you know what your customer wants. They also deal with problems that might bridge to CS more. I work at a bakery atm, but I found a solution to an algorithm on a programming interview/test in the way they set up and filled the racks of bread at the bakery. YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED HOW MUCH THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPEN.

You need to stop thinking that what is in the books is what's important. You are concentrating so much on the nose of the portrait of computer science that you are forgetting that the portrait is actually a landscape and you are missing the beautiful waterfalls, rolling hills, and mountains that are life.