[dmytrish]

In Ukraine, college/university is a holy cow: there's a widely held belief that anyone can't be successful without a graduation document (in other words, in [post-]Soviet Ukraine education gains you). The post-Soviet education system mostly supports that frame of mind that is deeply rooted in parents' heads.

I was lucky to study in one of most sane universities in Ukraine, but my bad choice of the physics department lead me into severe depression which cut my studies and I dropped out right in the middle of the BS course. There was some harsh time but then I managed to be a well-paid software developer in well-known Eastern European outsourcing companies working with US and European clients.

But here's another problem: for some weird reason 1 year of university is equal to 3 years of work experience (in my opinion, this is reasonable for the U.S. education, but this should be reversed for Eastern Europe) for H1B US visa evaluation. So now I'm studying at correspondence courses (I don't even know how to describe this weird form of education exactly: self-education mixed with a two weeks of intensive courses before exams) at CS department at the same university to gain more freedom to move wherever I want. Also, it's a nice way to make my autodidact CS knowledge more systemic and the professors are often nice and interesting people.

tl;dr: education is worth it if you're academically inclined and choose your department right. Even more, it's good to drop out if and only if you're sure that's necessary. In case of doubts it's better to stay.

[nirnira]

Your English is exceptional, but I just wanted to point out (and I'm only being this picky because your English is so good) that the word you wanted was systematic, not systemic. Similar sounding but quite different meanings!