I took 18 months off to do a startup+moved to the valley and am now back finishing college before doing another startup. Why? It shows that you're good at fin

I took 18 months off to do a startup+moved to the valley and am now back finishing college before doing another startup. Why? It shows that you're good at finishing things and the degree is something you'd probably rather have than not have. Some lessons learned I guess: * don't try to do a full time startup AND college. By full time, I mean the serious i want to raise money, grow the company, big vision startup. It won't happen. If it somehow gets to the point that you think it can, take time off. Side projects are okay, and I'd encourage them. Keep making your own stuff. Not every project you build has to be the next facebook. * you know the path youre going for (engineering/startup stuff). Go learn the things that interest you while you're at school that you know absolutely nothing about. * meet as many people as you can. * if you're not challenged like patio said, find something that will challenge you. * you might take some business classes. everything they say to you will seem wrong because of the way we do things in a web startup. that's okay. you're not going to be able to all of a sudden make them see what you see. * use your student discount for everything you can. conferences, software, research material access, ways to get people to listen to you (youd be surprised at how much the "im a college kid, can u help me" line gets people to respond),etc. * keep in touch with the industry, but don't get pulled into the echo chamber+desire to social climb too much. for every kevin rose there are many many more like Ryan Allis or other successful entrepreneurs that have made millions + never graced techcrunch/techmeme. youll feel anxious seeing x company get funded y amount, 500 mentions of twitter, and google buying x company for obscene amount of money y. Youll somehow feel as if now is the only time this can ever happen and unless you jump in, you're screwed. this isn't true. Even though there are boom periods, there will always be new technology companies and market needs. I stopped using Twitter the other day and deleted my entire feed reader list. I only read what's on HN when it comes to tech. I'm already a happier person, because I'm less stressed. My biggest mistake is that I really only got one year of the "real college experience". that's when I was at boston college my freshman year. Somehow when I transferred to UMiami, I just stumbled into entrepreneurship, which meant the real world. If I could go back, I would have found a way to enjoy more of just being a normal college kid, worked on fun projects, and then gone balls to the walls with startup stuff.