Choosing a college degree

This is a topic I could write pages about! But I won't.

Assuming you're sharp enough (sounds like it!) to do well in self study, you will learn more and faster if you spend $500 on top-notch books and spend a few hrs a day studying those, reading stuff from the net as backup, and hopping on a few key talk lists so you have a place to ask questions.

The key to doing this is coming up with a good curriculum for yourself. There are some topics that you may not need to use everyday, but they will help you understand things you'll see (I'm thinking of data structures and algorithms here).

Most people should go to college, so your decision to go is probably a good one. The key is to get as much out of it as possible, and IMO that is to study things that maybe aren't your core interest, but to study things that will help you really take advantage of your core interest, and that maybe you can't get access to any other way.

Maybe you like programming, but also find the environment really interesting. Maybe you don't want to be a chemist or biologist, but it would be cool to work for a bio-hazards research company. If you minor in biology or some other type of thing, now you can go get a programming job at a very interesting company instead of writing just another shopping cart. If you're bent on developing and selling your own apps, then yeah, business courses could make sense.

Since the university experience today isn't designed to help you specialize, but rather to introduce you to options, then use it for that purpose, and you'll get a lot more for your money and time. Use college to learn how to research. Use homework to learn how to write well, how to present your ideas and yourself well, etc.