Prefix: I'm looking for some advice here. Feel free to offer any and all thoughts. If someone's willing and interested to offer further help besides posts, I'd love to hear some PM's.
Background: 21 years old, taking classes in comp sci at a state university. 2 years minimum left for a degree.
As I finished out my semester here, there's a few conclusions I've realized. I'm learning very little in my classes. There's information that is absorbed, but very little is actually learning. I do coding in LISP - my teacher was awful, unhelpful. Projects are relatively pointless, it's intended to be a class on paradigms and I learned how to write code to solve a few puzzles and to link in an HTML page.
I take an assembly language/computer systems class. Never touched assembly language, did basic C code for embedded systems. Mainly consisted of following the guidelines for the project just step by step. Code was easy, looking up a few functions in the DriverLib manuals, etc. Weird issues cropped up, of course, but manageable.
I've finished the semester, I've not had a normal one, I got rigged up at the beginning because I was doing a transfer of schools and it was nearly 3 weeks before I was actually enrolled in classes. Got shafted on homework assignments for that period, and in the attempt to catch up, overall dropped me a good letter grade for each class.
At this point, I have definitive considerations towards walking away. I learn much faster on my own. I've dealt with large projects before - I worked with Skyrim modding, and wrote large sections of a java library for it along with a good friend of mine, along with my own programs to utilize the library with hundreds of thousands of users. I've got the brains, I've got friends that are willing to work with me, I know venture capitalists and have close friends with relatively significant amounts of money. I have a drive to achieve what I want - which at the moment, is not correlating to my classes. I have no drive there, and I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with it. I have good social skills, in general.
So here's my questions;
Most especially, if anyone with experience would be interested in a skype call/discussion, that would be fantastic.
Background: 21 years old, taking classes in comp sci at a state university. 2 years minimum left for a degree.
As I finished out my semester here, there's a few conclusions I've realized. I'm learning very little in my classes. There's information that is absorbed, but very little is actually learning. I do coding in LISP - my teacher was awful, unhelpful. Projects are relatively pointless, it's intended to be a class on paradigms and I learned how to write code to solve a few puzzles and to link in an HTML page.
I take an assembly language/computer systems class. Never touched assembly language, did basic C code for embedded systems. Mainly consisted of following the guidelines for the project just step by step. Code was easy, looking up a few functions in the DriverLib manuals, etc. Weird issues cropped up, of course, but manageable.
I've finished the semester, I've not had a normal one, I got rigged up at the beginning because I was doing a transfer of schools and it was nearly 3 weeks before I was actually enrolled in classes. Got shafted on homework assignments for that period, and in the attempt to catch up, overall dropped me a good letter grade for each class.
At this point, I have definitive considerations towards walking away. I learn much faster on my own. I've dealt with large projects before - I worked with Skyrim modding, and wrote large sections of a java library for it along with a good friend of mine, along with my own programs to utilize the library with hundreds of thousands of users. I've got the brains, I've got friends that are willing to work with me, I know venture capitalists and have close friends with relatively significant amounts of money. I have a drive to achieve what I want - which at the moment, is not correlating to my classes. I have no drive there, and I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with it. I have good social skills, in general.
So here's my questions;
- What would the impacts be of finishing a degree, versus not finishing a degree? Consider this from the standpoint of me starting up my own company either way. Would it be better to finish the degree and pay the money, or can I benefit more by passing on those two years, and starting now?
- In creating a product, a piece of software, how do I approach companies with this? Say I have an idea that could be used - how do I go about broaching this idea? Do I design a functional version first, then contact them? How does this process work?
- How effective are advertising methods of revenue? In the context of, say, an application for smartphones.
- What are methods to market and advertise a product?
- How feasible is the thought of branching out at 21? Am I going to run into issues with people presuming I should be getting a degree, or presuming that I need to age before dealing with business?
Most especially, if anyone with experience would be interested in a skype call/discussion, that would be fantastic.