> How am I supposed to decide whether the book A is better than the book B for the topic I am trying to learn? Do I need to know something before getting into this other topic? How I decide the path I need to follow to reach a certain knowledge? Those questions are (almost) always solved with somebody guiding you through the process of learning.

This is rapidly becoming a thing of the past:

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...

I'm 3 years into a software engineering degree and in all honesty, I'm doing it for the piece of paper. Last semester, I attended about 10% of the classes, studied by myself and still managed to get good grades. I wouldn't recommend it to people who aren't passionate about the subject though.

One thing I hate about the 2 universities I went to (Montreal, Hong Kong) is that many teachers (un)knowingly discriminate against students who don't attend classes. This often takes the form of giving hints about the exam during tutorials, giving privileged information about which topics will be evaluated and which won't. In Hong Kong, I have even seen teachers give participation grades or require a minimum class attendance in order to pass (this happened in computer engineering/science!).