Thanks for replying, much appreciated.

I don't know...I guess I'm sad that my parents were against dorming since I lived so close. I try to get over the fact that I commute because I feel like I can do something for myself even if I am in this situation. I'll go through these periods in my life where I feel inadequate, dealt bad cards, and didn't take the chance to leave even when my GPA was fantastic. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate myself but all I have are grades and some great conversations with professors. Still...

Mind if I ask where you went to college? What are you doing now?

I went to NYU, and commuted to Manhattan from Queens. My parents were also against me dorming. Yea I wasn't too pleased with them for that. Oh well. This was over a decade ago - now I live in Berkeley, CA; I work as a consultant programmer on various web related projects, after having done a few startups as a cofounder (none worked out) and at this point the fact that I lived at home during college is no longer relevant - after college I got a job, moved into a four bedroom apartment in Brooklyn NY with a couple of dudes some of whom I knew from high school, and pretty much spent all of my twenties doing what people do for four years in dorms in colleges: coding with my roommate, partying, self-analyzing, making mistakes, building and fucking up relationships, developing various professional and social skills.

My advice is probably exactly what you'd expect a reasonable, more adult and "mature" person on the internet whom you've never met say: don't do anything drastic. Finish your college at home, maintain your GPA, see if you can maybe land a job, local or remote, while you are still in school so that you have some money ready to be at your disposal once you graduate. As soon as you graduate, move your ass to a major city that is an epicenter of whatever your career happens to be, and live in a cool neighborhood with lots of other recent grads. Hopefully there will already be people you may know - maybe from high school, maybe from college - this will be your starting point for a social circle. Or if not - there's always meetup.com and okcupid.com

Good luck, and don't worry about missed opportunities. I've missed ten times as many more opportunities in my twenties as I did during college. If I had spent a lot of time thinking about all the things I missed out on in life, I'd probably put a bullet into myself a long time ago.

I went to NYU as well.. and actually commuted from Queens as well! (Did we go to the same CS classes as well?!!)

When you graduate from college, it's a whole whole different ball game. Most people lose touch with their friends from college, regardless of whether they dormed or not. Everyone gets a job at a boring Corp. Everyone eventually stops partying until 1 AM in the morning. Everyone eventually starts worrying about paying the rent, and all the "adult" things... trust me, by the time you graduated, everyone starts from Step 1.

Now go build a startup, so you can got an escape hatch after you graduate ^_^

my email address is in my profile - email me, we'll chat.