[EnderMB]

Higher Certificate? Perhaps my knowledge of this is dated, but after you finish your second year can you not go onto the final-year of a university course? That was the case for HND's a while back.

If you can move on, and get a degree within the next two years then I'd probably stick with the course you're on, and to continue freelancing.

From what I've read, you seem capable, but your tool set seems rather dated, something I've noticed a lot from students that study for web-related certifications. Sadly, the mere mention of Dreamweaver is usually enough to scare people away from you, despite the actual knowledge you need to use any IDE.

[Noel_V]

The degree course I could continue to do has some modules of questionable value and I could learn at a faster more specific rate alone. I used to be somewhat anti dreamweaver, and I still never use it in design view for instance, I use it as a text editor, but as was suggested in another reply to this post I've downloaded netbeans and I'm starting to use that. First impressions, netbeans seems very nice.

[EnderMB]

I know the feeling all too well. In my opinion, a lot of degree courses are not fit for purpose. I studied at an ex-poly that had over 15 different Computing related courses and the only ones of real value were Computer Science and Software Engineering.

I know for a fact that some universities will consider a transfer for your final year to another course. One guy I worked with was on a HND course in Computing and he managed to get into the second year of Computer Science at Bristol University, and one managed to get into the final year at an ex-poly, again in Computer Science. It might be worth considering if you think your grades will be up to scratch.

However, to be fair, most people on here will agree that your skills show far more than what degree you have. Frankly, the value in the degree isn't necessarily the knowledge you attain, but the whole experience, as well as working on projects of a certain scale and complexity. Once you've got a job behind you, the degree is nothing more than a slip of paper.

In regards to IDE's, as long as you're using something used in industry and are using something you are comfortable in there's no need to worry. When I was a student I worked a ton of internships and picked up C# and .NET that way, so my career went down the .NET route, although I've dabbled a bit in PHP and Python where I could. If you're itching to work, then I'd highly recommend sticking with the course, and working over the summer. There are always schemes out there for students, and the experience is invaluable later on.