[cbernini]

I'm not part of the American system, so my two cents might not help much. Anyways I agree with you that college slows down whoever has a greater learning curve than the average college student.

But it turns ou that whatever comes next and is more challenging, requires a degree (masters program, whatever you pick). So I got to this dead end, where I __had__ to go back to college and finish it because I really wanted to get into a master's program once I'm done with it.

About employment, I'd say it's relative. Big companies nowadays are already leaning towards the idea that interpersonal skills, individal behavior end up being more important in the long term run. Of course a degree has its value, but it isn't the most important thing when you look at someone's CV.

Also, what happens here and seems to be slightly different than the north American scene is that a high percentange of the college students in Brazil have full time jobs or start on internships right after joining college, since the market is in a urge for IT professionals. Saying that, only people on State/Public colleges (which are the top notch institutions here) or with wealthy families, have the change to opt-in for extra credits, different graduation programs and so on.

Just as a conclusion, college is a decent experience if you have the time, and money (unfortunately) to enjoy it at its maximum. It is indeed a really huge investiment, and is still a requirement for most of the jobs, since if you ever get the change to be a project manager or anything like, a MBA would be a nice trophy and for that you'll need a degree for example. I'd say you should graduate, just to raise your employment chances since you seem to be a good self-taught person.