[webwright]

This.

Passing college is cake. It requires very few hours of time compared to a real job-- it's a GREAT time to spin up a side business to see if you can generate/find demand for what you have. It's also a great time to experiment with co-founders.

That said, necessity is the motherhood of invention and failure isn't going to sting THAT much. It's not terribly challenging to un-drop-out of college is it?

Finally, I suppose if someone is racking up debt and getting an art history or philosophy degree, you should advise them to drop out immediately whether they have a business idea or not. The common thread I see here ( http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/ ) is student loan debt.

[hessenwolf]

Ha ha. That really depends on your Uni. I remember severe health problems due to the amount of study in my undergraduate.

[contravert]

I would have to agree. When I was working as a full-time developer (for internships), it felt like I had all the time in the world compared to homework and studying.

[webwright]

I think folks are missing my point. If you're considering dropping out, I think you can lower your class-load to the minimum, be willing to get barely-passing grades, and test out whether you really have an interesting opportunity before you take the plunge.

School CAN be a really free time. You live in a tiny room, Have access to a cafeteria, have a 0-5min commute to work, and are surrounded by an army of peers who are segmented by interest (field of study). As evidenced by the number of startups that started in college dorm rooms, it's a great place to start a company.

[hessenwolf]

Again... wtf university did you go to? Slackers U?

[xibernetik]

This depends on your degree, university, and year of study. 30 hours/week of class is pretty normal in my program, and I've seen schedules with 40 hours/week. The rule of thumb thrown around is 1 hour in class == 1 hour studying on your own: 60 hours/week. There are definitely design project classes which eat up a disproportionate amount of time on top of that, so that's pretty conservative for some years.

Funnily enough, the time that I have to experiment with side project is during the summer months when I have a full-time job.

[dlo]

There was a course back in college that alone required 30 hours per week. And it was only the third most difficult course or so in the program, which was computer science.

[WalterBright]

At Caltech, the usual rule was 2 hours of study per hour of class. Sometimes it was a lot more than that :-)