I don't want to study, I just want to be seen as having a degree. (Strong evidence for this is that I enjoy reading books for some personal research when I hated literally the same books when I had to read them for class.)

Fair enough, I guess I misunderstood what you were saying.

But as Xixidu mentioned, when you start applying rationality to that, you end up changing your own values in the process and not always in a pretty way.

I guess its not guaranteed to turn out well, and when I was still working through my value-conflicts it wasn't fun. In the end though, the clarity that I got from knowing a few of my actual goals and values feels pretty liberating. Knowing (some of) what I want makes it soooo much easier for me to figure out how to do things that will make me happy, and with less regret or second thoughts after I decide.