After reading through all this, I tought id throw in my two cents.

Find a 'rival'. It may seem weird but someone of a similar age who is on a similar level is an easy way to spur yourself on. I had a friend from college who was better than me, so everything I did was to pull ahead & I let him know. That way he did the same, we both challenged each other to become better.

In terms of your degree make it harder. Personally my coursework was open ended, e.g. "create a game with quadrants and enemies activated within." we got given an example that most people followed, but by going for something I'd never tried it brought about new problems, new questions and new challenges.

Contact the tutors out of hours by email. In lessons ofc they're busy, an email allows continuous discussion and time to formulate a reasonable response. If they dont give you the answers you need go online like you have, generally tutors are a better port of call since you can also have direct conversations.

In terms of the cost of the dregree dont worry about it. Over 21k you have to pay, its a minute amount. Ive been in the industry for two years and never noticed it, it eventually gets wiped so ignore the neverending interest.

Sorry if this seems very idealistic, but you seem to be overly worried. The loan isnt as aggresive as it seems it just exists. You need to make your time at uni count by making it difficult for you. Also remember uni's your last chance to be surrounded by people of the same level, so have a drink with some friends and argue over syntax for the hell of it :).

It's definitely possible to be self-taught and successful. From people who dropped out of college (e.g. John Carmack) to people who never went to college (e.g. Casey Muratori) to people who didn't even finish high school (e.g. Mike Acton from Insomniac Games, Markus "Notch" Persson of Minecraft fame)

But of course having a degree always helps with getting hired and since you're over halfway there and you've already put in so much money, I'd say it's probably best if you continued and got that piece of paper.

There are a lot more examples of guys who didn't make it without a College degree while there's plenty of examples of guys who did really well with a college degree. Of course it's possible, it's just damned tough and most of the time it doesn't work out. If you want to do anything computer science related, then you do need that degree. Most people won't take you seriously without it.

I'm actually pretty sceptical of this.

I've worked in london for 8 years and apart from my first job (tbh im not even sure they cared, my colleague was hired cos he liked rugby) no one seamed interested in my degree (which i got a pretty low score in).

In both my jobs (3 + 5 years) i've worked with successful software developers without degrees - 2 of which hadn't ever coded before 30-35, one was a musician and another was a postman. They are self taught from a very late age and did very well.

I have a friend from SA (has a non standout degree) who really isnt that hot at all and he has never held a permanent position. He talked his way into a £300 per day contract job and has been doing contract jobs since then. This is pretty common.

It may be different in other cities, the demand in london is rediculous and the quality of the universities across most of england is so low its hard to take them seriously. Many people from my university got a 1st but I know personally that they didn't care for the subect matter.

I have done some recruitment at the place that I work and we use knowledgable 3rd party recruiters in our field and they talk around and see who knows what. We dont filter based on degree at all really.

IMO and experience in london.

Industry + Demonstrated knowledge + Degree > Industry + Demonstrated Knowledge > Industry > Demonstrated knowledge + Degree > Demonstrated Knowledge > Degree > Nothing

Short of being a household name - not even reading a CV because it doesnt have a degree is a stupid business practice and I would be suprised to see any hard evidence counter to that. In a small - medium size business one of the most important elements is who you employ - bringing that down to a numbers game is a policy based on limited time and lazyness - not results.

Beleive or not, there are people in this world who want to hire a person, not a robot.

There are also a number of software developers i know who have a non technology related degree but moved to software later, self taught. At the end of the day you just need proof - a degree is just 1 form of proof. You could get a microsoft certification / build something relavent / join an open source project / attend user groups to meet employers / start a business.

It's definitely possible to be self-taught and successful. From people who dropped out of college (e.g. John Carmack) to people who never went to college (e.g. Casey Muratori) to people who didn't even finish high school (e.g. Mike Acton from Insomniac Games, Markus "Notch" Persson of Minecraft fame)

You are not wrong but achieving this is always very hard. People also win the Lottery but I wouldn't recommend putting all your savings on Lottery tickets ;)

I have a friend from SA (has a non standout degree) who really isnt that hot at all and he has never held a permanent position. He talked his way into a £300 per day contract job and has been doing contract jobs since then. This is pretty common.

This is a very very low figure for a contractor in London unless this was a long time ago. Day rates were more than this in 2009. £450 is about the bottom end in London right now.

I have done some recruitment at the place that I work and we use knowledgable 3rd party recruiters in our field and they talk around and see who knows what. We dont filter based on degree at all really.

Those 3rd party recruiters will absolutely be checking CVs and making sure the candidate has a degree (unless they are more senior and already have several years experience). They will give you the sales patter and tell you that they have a report with the candidates and they know who knows what. The truth is they just scan LinkedIn or Jobsite CVs looking for people with the right degree and the right keywords.

Short of being a household name - not even reading a CV because it doesnt have a degree is a stupid business practice and I would be suprised to see any hard evidence counter to that. In a small - medium size business one of the most important elements is who you employ - bringing that down to a numbers game is a policy based on limited time and lazyness - not results.

It isn't bringing it down to a numbers game. It already is a numbers game. You do not have to be a household name to get a couple of thousand applicants for a single job role. Even small 3 man startups in Shoreditch get 100s of applications daily.

Can you make it in the industry without a degree? Of course, there are plenty of famous examples of people who have. But for every Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, there are millions of people who didn't get a degree and got into the industry.

The thing is Bill Gates never had to apply for a job in the industry because he made his own industry and became the industry before he finished his degree. As for Steve Jobs he did work at Atari but this was before video games had really become an industry and anybody who knew which end of a soldering iron to use was considered a genius.