"Write essays to please an online audience. For new projects that would be better in a different language, learn the new language. Learn everything from first principles, and when something looks wrong, bring it up. Do all the readings, and read the original works. Program in programming contests. Program for fun. Program as reflex. Don't ask permission to do research. Live in Libraries. Play games with smart people. Give talks. Teach. Publish. Learn."
I fully agree that this is exactly what you should be doing to genuinely learn and have a good time. But doesn't the regimentation of school just get in the way of doing the above? School has so much random pointless overhead you have to put up with, and doesn't help at all with doing the above.
Most of the random pointless overhead is something you can turn into something useful, and the constant stream of it forces you out of your current mode and area of comfort and into something new -- often in a dumb assignment there's a kernel of brilliance.
It also helps immensely to have deadlines from outside you: given a schedule I found myself able to complete many times more than I would otherwise schedule for myself, with no exhaustion and less stress than I would otherwise have.
I don't think it's a great mode to be in permanently, but for four years? It was definitely worth my time. I know that college isn't needed to learn any specific thing, but I know that it would take uncanny discipline to approach the breadth of what I had learned without the framework of the university to guide me. I needed to harness that framework, and parts of it did get in the way, but I certainly think that for me it conferred net benefit.
I fully agree that this is exactly what you should be doing to genuinely learn and have a good time. But doesn't the regimentation of school just get in the way of doing the above? School has so much random pointless overhead you have to put up with, and doesn't help at all with doing the above.