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Daniel_Burfoot comments on Open Thread: November 2009 - Less Wrong
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So, I'm having one of those I-don't-want-to-go-to-school moments again. I'm in my first year at a university, and, as often happens, I feel like it's not worth my time.
As far as math goes, I feel like I could learn all the facts my classes teach on Wikipedia in a tenth of the time--though procedural knowledge is another matter, of course. I have had the occasional fun chat with a professor, but the lecture was never it.
As far as other subjects go, I think forces conspired to make me not succeed. I had a single non-math class, though it was twice the length of a normal class and officially two classes. It was about ancient Greece and Rome, and we had to read things like Works and Days and the Iliad. Afterwards, we were supposed to write a paper about depictions of society in the two works or something. I never wrote the paper, and I dropped the class.
Is school worth it for the learning? How about for the little piece of paper I get at the end?
I think you should ask yourself this: if you drop out, what realistically are you going to do with your time? If you don't have a very good answer to that question, stay where you are.
View university in the same way as you would view a long lap-swimming workout. Boring as hell, maybe, but you'll be better off and feel better when you're done. Sure, you could skip your pool workout and go do something Really Important, but most people skip their workouts and then go watch TV instead.
Suppose you have an idea or desire for something to do instead of university. You should create a gradual, reversible transition. For instance if you want to work and earn some money, find a job first (telling them you've dropped out), work for a couple of weeks, make sure you like it, and only then actually drop out. Or if you want to study alone at home, start doing it for 10 hours every week, then 20, drop just one or two classes to free the time, and when you see it's working out, go all out.
This may not be convenient if working for a couple weeks requires time you'll only have if you drop out. If you end up not wanting to drop out after all, you can't necessarily afford to miss the classes.