How much $ is too much

For the last few years I have been trying to acquire an engineering degree to better my life at a future date. It seems to me like the degree will make my life better and to a certain extent I do believe this notion. However there is a part of me that wants to be like everybody else, not care in the world, even if for one day. What price have I to pay to hopefully secure a comfortable life 5 years from now? I have been told that education is the only true investment, something to fall back incase everything else fails. Study hard and you will be secure, safe and maybe make enough money for a comfortable life. People can take away your material possessions but the knowledge in my head is mine for eternity(might not seat well with some religious groups).
I don't want a secure life per say, I want a challenge not the daily routine that I have grown accustomed to.
University has taken a toll on my social life (if there ever was any) and I think I have developed a survival skill that few of my peers poses. So far I have escaped the addiction to caffeine or even worse the occassion cigarret. The ability to think as an individual steers me to want more than just a degree. I want to be able to leave a legacy, not some theory that I has been shoved down my throat. I for one have a hatred for the current education system, people are graded for their ability to memorize. For those of us whose memory skills are faltered we are forced to result in poor grades. I have classmates who have struggled to keep up with the 'good' grade mentallity and it seems almost hopeless. Does that mean that because I have a credit in a subject that I know less than the HD student, even worse the pass student? I think we should re-evaluate the way we grade university students, especially engineering students. I speak of them because I am in that group, aspiring engineering students. We all want to have our names tagged onto an invention, I know I do, that would explain the many times I sit in front of my notebook just thinking. Sad but true I could say that I have had my share of brilliance and most of all my share of deadly disappointments, we want to be great engineers but I fear to improving on grades maybe affecting my zeal to think outside the box.
Is there a student out there that can claim to have been taught anything other than memorizing in campus. I want to learn more than some theory conjured 50years ago, how can I use my knowledge to secure my future? Nobody seem to care that I can't manage my finances or that even with a brilliant mind I may lack the investment skills required to secure a financially hassle free life 20-30 years from now. I will dedicate the remaining 2years or so to learning about investing in my education and most importantly how invest in my knowledge of money and finances. True money can't buy happiness,joy or even love but imagine what a bright mind with money could do. Love wouldn't hindered by the need to always work trying to pay off that mortgage or car loan. Many of the problems we rather I face are because I don't have the dollars to back me up. With money I could focus on other matters of life love and maybe a family down the track. Not in the next 5 years though, well I hope not; that is kids of course.
20 years from now, I will not be yearning to work more and more just to survive but I will be living my life to the full. For now, I will get my act together,get myself ready and make up for the lost time. 1 year has been lost because of failing subjects I could have passed, love of money could be blamed for this but that would be plain naive. I screwed up and it's time I clean up and get back I should have been, ages ago.
kman productions...........