I am in a computer science degree program at Appalachian state university because I want to get a job in AI research in the future. School isn't working for me, I have never liked formal education. I am much better at teaching myself stuff. I have gone through a couple introductory courses on AI and I learned a lot I can confidently talk about the current AI news and have a good fundamental understanding of how ai work. The biggest problem is that I need the government financial aid that I can only get from going to a formal school. I need a way to financially support myself so I can drop out of school and study on my own until I can get the job I want or a job that has the vertical potential to move up to the job I want. The best thing I can imagine is a full time computer science internship that pays enough to live on. But i am open to other ideas. I have no problem with taking out loans but as far as I know you can't get a loan to teach yourself. I don't think I have the portfolio to get into decent internship right now but I intend to start building one soon. I have only taken computer science 1 in school but I have been teaching myself programming for years so I have plenty of self taught experience.