I'm not doing well in college. I just came from a midterm that I almost certainly failed. I've not done well in any of my classes besides a bullshit social science course that anyone can do well in. In my real courses, statistics, calculus, and a theory CS course, I'm failing desperately. I don't go to class anymore.
I can recognize that it's entirely my maturity and work ethic that is the problem here. When I do find myself going to class, I comprehend fully. I don't find it hard to catch up, even. When I leave class, I don't do homework and I don't study.
This is the first time I'm admitting it to myself, but I don't believe I can succeed in this system. I don't know if I'm lying to myself when I say I love learning, or if I'm just much more subpar than I'm willing to recognize.
It's not that I'm an unmotivated individual, it's just that I've always been a self-learner. I hate this whole system of, go to a class for 50 minutes and study a subject, spend an hour later in the day doing some homework in the same subject, and maybe do this every other day. When I learn, I'm much better at spending 10 hours really consuming the material, flying through chapters, and then doing that for 5-6 days in a row. Formal education doesn't cater to me in this regard.
I love to program. The few hours in the day that I'm happy are when I'm reading mailing lists and and working on personal projects. I truly believe that if I was to drop out, I wouldn't waste my time doing anything else. I'd be able to really embrace the style of learning that works best for me.
I think that a few years from now I would find myself more prepared for the real world than most of my friends, although, I think they would similarly find that they have an easier time finding work than I. But that doesn't worry me a ton.
I've watched my father be an EE for his whole life, programming and managing for a boring company that makes controllers. I don't want to enter that ecosystem _at all_. I have watched him hate his life in exchange for a paycheck, and I'd like to opt out from that system entirely. What best fits that? The market for full stack engineers / web developers / app developers. And alternatively, the start up scene.
I wonder if the reason I'm involved with coding at all is because it caters so much to my preferred style of learning. Maybe that's why I latched onto it so hard in late middle school.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Let me know what you guys think I should do, or if there are any questions you think I should pose to myself to really figure this out.