You've picked the longer road. It's up to you to make it worth it. There are a number of reasons people circumvent university: Opportunity strikes before gradu

You've picked the longer road. It's up to you to make it worth it. There are a number of reasons people circumvent university: Opportunity strikes before graduation, job offers, great ideas that need to get to market first. Whatever motivated you to drop out isn't really as important as what you do next. Meaning this: DON'T WASTE TIME. If you're serious about being an entrepreneur or hacker, you need to start shipping stuff NOW. By the time your peers graduate in a year or two or three, they will have several summer internships behind them, interesting senior projects and perhaps a few things they built on the side. You need to make sure that you're building not only a portfolio but a strong base of learning in different environments. You have a couple of logistical problems that many students, don't however: • Cash flow... Many students have loans or financial aid. You're going to have to figure out how to generate revenue while still building and shipping. • No systemic support... Many students have access to things like internship placement, job placement, job fairs, etc.. You're going to have to generate your own infrastructure. A few ways you can do this: Network, go to meetups, attend hackathons, etc. Some things you can do to stay abreast or even move ahead of your peers: • Get a job (duh) -- harder than it sounds • Get an internship • Volunteer for a cool project • Get involved with an opensource project and start getting commits in Depending on what you want or think you want to do with your life, location is going to be important. Provo is nice enough but it's not exactly a hub of innovation. I would shy away from living with your parents -- it's only going to make you frustrated and slow you down -- but you have to make that CBA yourself. Anyway, I wish you luck. You're taking what is likely a harder road, but can be just as or more rewarding than a conventional one.