* Finish your degree, but be aware it's probably just a meal ticket.
* Adopt a philosophy of lifelong learning.
* Setting goals is good, but don't fixate on the number such that you miss an opportunity.
* Show your projects to your friends in the second group; someone will surprise you.
* Do your homework or hack your side projects at Jelly or a similar co-working group.
* Unless your project is very small, don't raze it, iterate it. This more or less applies equally to code and business (pivot).
* As you grow in confidence, show people from the first group your projects; someone will surprise you.
* Learn a new language about once a year. Be sure it's sufficiently different from the last one, i.e. C family one year, ML family the next etc.
* Read news.yc and make a note of the interesting tech people here are using. Read up on it.
* Don't read too much news.yc.
What school are you studying at?