I have been there. The last semester I enrolled at was fall 2010, about 6 months ago. I did not find any value in pursuing a degree that contained subjects I had no interest in whatsoever (my major was Information and communication technology), I chose not to enroll during the spring semester in favor of attaining professional certifications (Cisco CCIE) as I had taken an interest in them and attained "lower level certs" before that. (The CCIE is considered the holy grail of networking.
Lately however, I have fallen in love with programming and software development, and I have been studying with a passion. This has led me to conclude that throughout the length of my career, I will be involved with different technologies and perhaps even disciplines. Technology is full of uncertainty, you do not know where you will be in 2 years (let alone 5), what if you get a referral for that dream job but it requires a degree? Or if you decide to build a startup and it tanks--you would have to consider employment to regain at least some of the money you have lost.
There are countless other scenarios in which you may regret not having completed your degree. However, the most important thing to consider is that once you quit, you would lose out on opportunities--what they exactly are, you will never find out.
EDIT: This is in response to your edit indicating that you are not dropping out of school. That is good. But if anything, you should drop the music major.
Like ziyadb, I was also last enrolled fall 2010 as a CS major. I have a rather odd record of my collegiate career as I have been skipping semesters, sometimes a whole year in order to pursue freelance web/software development, and start-ups. It started in 2006 when I started a web development firm with my room mate. (Disclosure: Partnerships are hard.) We had a couple of clients then things were shaky. This lasted until 2007 in which he enrolled back in school and I followed suite. Personally, it took me a while to get into school as the intro classes held such little interest to me, could have been the teachers, to me they moved at a slow pace.
Then in 2008 after completing two years of my undergrad, I landed upon an interactive agency (start-up) through my connections I made with my own company earlier (Never underestimate the power of networking.) I invested in the company and we had a very nice office and great client database. That was certainly a peak time for me and were fruits of my freelance labor.
I cut out some of the rough times I have had, as they were certainly there, being a freelancer or being involved with a start-up is a lot of grunt work. Sometimes it was bill collecting or having to deal with unrealistic demands from clients, etc.
It all really depends what you want out of life. Do you want a structured and not so shaky career path? Are you will to take risks? Is anyone financially dependent on you? If you have a good deal of freedom then I say go for it, because those times will change and you can always go back to school.
I also agree with ziyadb, if anything drop the music. You can program a computer to play music anyway. :)
Yeah, this sort of "what if" thinking can be really hard. Thus far, all my employment opportunities have come from resources outside of school, and I have no reason to believe that that will change anytime soon, but as you mentioned... these things can change often and unpredictably.
Regarding the music major: Music is very important to me, and at the university I'm at I'm surround by people who inspire me to do my best work. I get inspired to program by reading books, HN, /r/programming, etc, not by sitting in my classes.
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I have been there. The last semester I enrolled at was fall 2010, about 6 months ago. I did not find any value in pursuing a degree that contained subjects I had no interest in whatsoever (my major was Information and communication technology), I chose not to enroll during the spring semester in favor of attaining professional certifications (Cisco CCIE) as I had taken an interest in them and attained "lower level certs" before that. (The CCIE is considered the holy grail of networking.
Lately however, I have fallen in love with programming and software development, and I have been studying with a passion. This has led me to conclude that throughout the length of my career, I will be involved with different technologies and perhaps even disciplines. Technology is full of uncertainty, you do not know where you will be in 2 years (let alone 5), what if you get a referral for that dream job but it requires a degree? Or if you decide to build a startup and it tanks--you would have to consider employment to regain at least some of the money you have lost.
There are countless other scenarios in which you may regret not having completed your degree. However, the most important thing to consider is that once you quit, you would lose out on opportunities--what they exactly are, you will never find out.
EDIT: This is in response to your edit indicating that you are not dropping out of school. That is good. But if anything, you should drop the music major.
Like ziyadb, I was also last enrolled fall 2010 as a CS major. I have a rather odd record of my collegiate career as I have been skipping semesters, sometimes a whole year in order to pursue freelance web/software development, and start-ups. It started in 2006 when I started a web development firm with my room mate. (Disclosure: Partnerships are hard.) We had a couple of clients then things were shaky. This lasted until 2007 in which he enrolled back in school and I followed suite. Personally, it took me a while to get into school as the intro classes held such little interest to me, could have been the teachers, to me they moved at a slow pace.
Then in 2008 after completing two years of my undergrad, I landed upon an interactive agency (start-up) through my connections I made with my own company earlier (Never underestimate the power of networking.) I invested in the company and we had a very nice office and great client database. That was certainly a peak time for me and were fruits of my freelance labor.
I cut out some of the rough times I have had, as they were certainly there, being a freelancer or being involved with a start-up is a lot of grunt work. Sometimes it was bill collecting or having to deal with unrealistic demands from clients, etc.
It all really depends what you want out of life. Do you want a structured and not so shaky career path? Are you will to take risks? Is anyone financially dependent on you? If you have a good deal of freedom then I say go for it, because those times will change and you can always go back to school.
I also agree with ziyadb, if anything drop the music. You can program a computer to play music anyway. :)
Yeah, this sort of "what if" thinking can be really hard. Thus far, all my employment opportunities have come from resources outside of school, and I have no reason to believe that that will change anytime soon, but as you mentioned... these things can change often and unpredictably.
Regarding the music major: Music is very important to me, and at the university I'm at I'm surround by people who inspire me to do my best work. I get inspired to program by reading books, HN, /r/programming, etc, not by sitting in my classes.