This precisely describes my experience in gamedev. Luckily, I can drop out and go into any of a dozen alternative computer-related career paths. I'm not sure any scientist is so well-off.
A third (rather modern) requirement might be to ignore what most people consider good practices and simply try to get as many things done as you can. The actual process of building things is mostly what increases your skill, not solely your study of how to build things.
The forth requirement for a computer science career is for someone to give you your initial break (hire you at a job). The only thing necessary for this is to find (a) an open-minded employer who cares mostly about whether you can build things rather than about what credentials you have, and (b) you can show a portfolio demonstrating that you can build things. Build a portfolio of personal projects -- the more visual, the better. Mine was to show demos of 3D game engines I made. They were simplistic, but they were pretty, and it got my foot in the door. If I wanted to become a webdev, I would put together a portfolio of websites I made. Note that you can make whatever you feel like making -- it doesn't need to have a purpose, just something like "here's my example checkout process I made for my example merchant website." Stuff like that.
There's always hope as long as you believe in yourself.