Lao-tzu said that you don't know what you don't know. I think staying in college is among the best ways to fill the holes that I am not aware that I have. I wouldn't have learned compilers, music, arts, game theory, automata, microecon, macroecon, accounting, matrix, physics, biology if I never had to take them/have them offered to me. I think everyone could absolutely learn everything on their own faster and more effectively. I think I would much less likely to be aware of them, and even less likely to endure the pain to go through them, that's for sure. But that's my pro-liberal arts view.
In the case of OP, they said they wanted to learn "brainwave sensors, VR, and that jawbone thing from MIT that was posted a few weeks back..." Maybe a few weeks more he/she will jump ship to another thing that MIT got on the news and the brainwave VR jawbone thing doesn't get on the news anymore. That's the tragedy of many "independent researchers," myself included sometimes. Having the patience to study something really well is really, really hard. Colleges are good at making you do that. At the very least, they guarantee whoever got out of it can spend at least one semester studying various subjects well, and many semeseters studying one subject they have the degree on very well. Whom do you trust more when you read their resume given you know nothing more about them: A person who claims to know AI/ML on their resume, or a person who has a degree in AI/ML?
>Also it's disturbing what starting life with a gigantic, crushing pile of debt can do. (It doesn't have to be this way, but I've seen plenty of even quite intelligent individuals go this route and regret it).
>If you can, take advantage of things like junior colleges. They're amazing.
Agreed. I attended a cheap college too. It was amazing.
>I owe my career not to my degree (pointless, though people at least tend to say "well you can't be an idiot" when they see a physics degree), but rather to what I learned taking a few night classes at Santa Monica College (including assembly, which was good fun) while working a day job and doing some projects for fun.
I totally agree with you. I didn't think that I owe what I became today to exactly what I learned in college. But I still think that I am capable of what I do today thanks to years being in college. Lao-tzu said colleges may not give you the fish directly but it teaches you how to fish for yourself.
