The last two sections is mostly what I want to address. I feel the same way of more stamina doing my projects then what I do at work, but I feel like the blame, at least for me, can't be attributed to school. Here is the reality, at least for me. I got into software engineering because I like to build really cool shit. The problem is, when people hire me, it usually isn't for really cool shit. Its a business application, often with insane requirements because the client has no clue what they want or even why they really need it. When it does get figured out, its often just some boring business application with nothing really challenging to it or interesting. I'll code it out, but there is nothing interesting about. But when I go home, I just do whatever I want. Want to build my own internet protocol built at a lower layer than TCP? Sure, sounds fun! But no one wants to pay me to do that, or the jobs that would pay me to do that are so far and few between.