If you can't apply yourself to studying things that you're not totally fascinated by (but which might be useful in ways you can't yet imagine) what makes you think you'll be able to deal with the tedious parts of freelancing, like finding clients, tracking your time, invoicing, bookkeeping, tax returns, documentation, and half a hundred tedious other tasks?
Where is your portfolio? What are your skills? You talk about teaching yourself JavaScript, PHP and Ruby, what is it that you can do already?
Where are you going to get your clients from? How much will you charge them? What is your expected cash-flow? How will you support yourself while looking for you first 20 gigs?
There's more, but I'm certainly not going to offer advice or opinions until I know more about who you are and what you can do. Even then, why are you seeking validation from a group of strangers? I would guess that you've made up your mind, and are asking the question of people who you know, en masse, to be anti-formal education.
Or have I got that wrong?
So my suggestion is this: write a proper blog post outlining your plans, and pointing at work you've done. Then let people critique that.
And yes, sometimes there is a point in doing stuff you don't enjoy. I don't enjoy invoicing, bookkeeping, or doing my tax return, just to give three examples. In truth, I don't much enjoy eating either, but that's a different story.
My portfolio as the moment is one humble website.. http://breakanycontract.com/
Its not great but its a start, and everyone has to start somewhere right?
The reason i ask because i wondered if other people maybe have been in the same boat as me and could offer some insight.
I also have my site which is a WIP.. www.joshhornby.co.uk
Uni isn't for everyone, but there's a lot to be gained if you use your time well, far, far more than you think. If you want to be a freelancer/entrepreneur/business person then you need to be able to think laterally, and make the most of every situation. Uni can be expensive, but there are more opportunities there than there are outside.
And speaking entirely for myself, you'd make a better impression if you correctly put apostrophes in "it's" and correctly capitalised "I". These things make a difference if you want to impress people and get them to give you money. The impression here is that you don't pay attention to the sort of nit-picking detail that makes a difference in a web site.
And if I sound harsh, wait till you get your first real client from the wild. And in the interests of full disclosure, I got a PhD and did enjoy my time at university, but I did a lot of stuff outside my coursework/studies, and the benefits from that are still being felt 30 years later.
Outside of uni i am trying to understand how websites are build and the skills needed. And i take on board your comment on the small details, this is something i do need to work on.
I strongly urge you to find a lecturer in the department and tell them that the course is nothing like you expected, that you're not really interested in the material being presented, and that you'd like to be challenged more, and see what they say. If you're intended to drop out anyway then you have very little to lose from this, and possibly everything to gain.
Tell them that when studying stuff you find interesting you have no trouble putting in the work and time. Ask if it's possible to design your own course of study.
If you go into freelancing, these sorts of negotiations will be essential. If you can't do it now, you need to learn. If you don't want to bother, what makes you think you'll be able to make a living freelancing? Studying something you're not really interested in is nastily similar to finishing the last fiddly bits of a web site before getting paid.
Leaving now is a potential waste of a great opportunity. Look to exploit it before you discard it.
There are people here on HN and in other places who can help and offer advice. My advice now is to do stuff, lots of stuff, to show that you've done the work and are willing and able to take advantage of advice they offer.
Remember, 90% of everything is crap, so you need to do 10, perhaps 20 or even 30 times as much work as you want for your final output.
Volume, along with introspection (so-called "deliberate practice [1]) and "taste" [2] will be your friends.
[1] http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Do_Lot...
The big challenge for you is to find out what truly motivates you and then arrange things in a way that play to your strength, i.e. squeeze those examination regulations until you find a school that supports your preferences. Nothing wrong with accepting that you are a bad at exam taker. But if you don't want to change this, you have to compensate for it by putting in the extra effort of finding a school/degree, that allows you to retake tests multiple times and/or replace them with oral disputations/papers, and one that gives strong weight to the final thesis in the total grade calculations.
A couple of points to think about with whatever you do:
How you perceive things affects what you gain from them. If Uni "isn't for you" then sitting in class you're not going to learn anything. If you say "this might be useful, maybe not today, but someday" then you'll get something out of it.
You may run into problems finding a job without a degree. While freelancing is fine now, how do you know you'll want to do it forever? I worked with a guy that ran his own consulting company for over 10 years, and had 3 employees. The economy crashed and he found himself looking for a full time job. While he had the experience to cover himself (being in his 50s), what if this happens to you in 3-5 years? There's a reason college sports players still get degrees.
There's a lot of growth that occurs at school. I recently had the opportunity to work with someone around my age that didn't go to college. I expected him to have a baseline of knowledge that he didn't have. There were communication problems because there was no common baseline. I also noticed a certain level of immaturity that I didn't notice in my peers who I went to college with.
There's also some amount of perseverance demonstrated by completing a degree. I don't know anyone who liked 100% of their college classes. Besides the required learning the piece of paper also signifies this. What does dropping out project to others about yourself? Will they realize this initially, or will you have to explain it to them? There's no right answer to this question.
There are significant financial implications to dropping out; especially if you might ever want to go to university again.
You'll also need to explain the gap to potential employers, but I guess some solid freelancing would be okay on your CV.
I suggest you start talking to people at your University and explain the problems you're having. They should be able to provide some help.
There's not much you can do about hating it. But there are things you can do about revision. There are many different systems for revision and note-taking.
Cornell Notes: (http://coe.jmu.edu/learningtoolbox/cornellnotes.html)
Study Skills: (http://coe.jmu.edu/learningtoolbox/study.html)
Doing something you don't enjoy shows employers that you have the ability to grind through unpleasant experiences. It prepares you for work - sometimes jobs are great, but often there are irritants.
How many hours are you doing at Uni? Now include the extra hours you spend at home / library. Now include some free time for social activity. Now include some time for paid work. Do you have 15 - 30 minutes left per day? That's time that can be used for learning Javascript, PHP, and Ruby.
In my opinion discipline is a learned skill. It's a good idea to learn it early, if at all possible.
Having said all this, if university is actively making you miserable, and you think you're at risk of depression, then you need to get better advice. You could defer, or you could drop out.
And please, don't think that dropping out is bad. It's certainly a valid choice.
Good Luck!
I struggled with exams, but I found that at uni a large percentage of the assessments was based on assignments and projects. This meant I did not have to worry so much about the exams and was able to get good marks.
Enjoy uni, it really is a good experience and I wish I could go back (I am aware that technically I could, but age wouldn't be on my side this time)!
I'm still wish I finished though, I still get uncomfortable when I have to share that I didn't finish Uni, I still defend myself when the issue comes up and I still wonder what my life would have been like if I did finish.
I always told myself that I was smart enough to finish but just didn't want to. Recently a friend said to me that if I really was that smart, I would've finished it anyhow, which really hit home.
So my advice, if you're really that smart just finish it next to all your other stuff. If you're not really that smart, just grind it out and become a stronger (and smarter) man through it.