I transfered from a technical/engineering school (1,500 students) to a more general state university (20,000) where computer science was not an important and the average student's ability was lower.
The real important difference was the curriculum. The state school had a language requirement (14 credit hours) tacked right on; CS is located in the Arts&Science school. It meant I couldn't take more technical electives.
The most important thing about undergrad years is what you can do when you leave, whether it came from a class or hours spent in self-directed study, as I did.
It meant a lot to potential employers when I could say that I have submitted (small) patches to the linux kernel, or wrote my own mini-kernel or compiler. Try writing a thread library or a nifty little VM, or something that is unusual and will stand out.
I didn't realize that the Hill/Horowitz book also has a companion lab manual. It looks something like I would like to have. Some of the books in the ARRL store look neat, too. Thanks!
The Arudino looks neat. I will definitely keep it in mind. I have taken digital electronics while in college and do remember k-maps and so forth, so it should hopefully not be too far ahead of me. :) Thanks again!
I've seen the BoeBot and it is quite adorable. I was wanting to put my software skills to a real test, though and I don't know if there is enough space on a BasicStamp chip. But it does seem like a good place to start! Even, still, I need to be aware of how components come together if I want to do something fancy on the bread board (don't want to short stuff out,e tc).
I agree and disagree. I don't think that romance is dumb. In fact, courtship and companionship seems like it would be wonderful, sublime.
However, reading your other comments about risk and so forth, I can feel myself resigning to agreement. It does seem like it would be a heavy risk and certain to fail. I can't explain why I'm so risk-averse where as other things in my life seem just as unsure.
I hope this is certainly possible to answer. Theoretically, if someone reads the right books and practices in the right way, along with hefty discipline and focus, one could say they would be very, very familiar with software and systems.
I am worried about breadth vs depth issues. It's probably why people get degrees in this. :) I'm sorry if I made it sound like I thought it was trivial. I'm not in any hurry, though; The Hardware Hacking books from O'Reilly are ok but not .. I dunno, "enough". The "Teach Yourself .." book is pretty dense...
Way to enforce the stereo type, bro