Now that I'm in my thirties, I can answer this. Two things come to mind.
First, really should have just done college after high school. I really wasn't looking forward to more school after graduation and wasted about 5 years before going back for my CS degree. I'm in a good place now, but could have had a 5 year head start on life if I'd just gone straight in.
Second, please take better care of your health while you have it. I was skinny as a rail in my early 20s and sort of took that for granted. I'm not obese or anything right now, but as you get older keeping in shape takes conscious upkeep. Get in the habit now and it'll be easier to maintain later. It's harder to lose the weight once you have it rather than keep it off.
My advice for picking a degree: pick something that you want to do, but also something marketable. The degree is useless if you can't get a job in it.
If you're worried about college being difficult, it can be, but 95% of your success is going to be based on motivation. I was a TA in college, and the best students were the ones that asked questions, came to office hours, and participated. I saw many a "smart kid" bomb a test due to overconfidence.
If you're not sure what to do, you can start with general education credits or even do the first part of your degree at a community college to save money. A lot of times a 2 year associates degree will serve as the first 2 years of a bachelor's.
For IT you could do Computer Science, Information Technology, Computer Engineering, etc. There's a whole lot of angles you could come at it from too. Would you want to maintain systems or develop them?
If databases interest you, you could be a DBA. If networking interests you, a network engineer. If you want to do development, you can focus on front-end development, back-end development, full-stack, embedded systems, and more. Maybe hardware interests you, so you'd like to be a computer engineer. Computers/IT has a lot of components to it, and even if you find yourself a person that likes to bounce between different things, there's a lot here that you can bounce between. School will have you touch a little bit of everything, and you can find that part you want to specialize in.
I think this is a good point. Work doesn't have to be a passion of yours. It shouldn't suck the joy out of your life, but there's nothing wrong with with just seeing your job as a job. I currently work as a software engineer for an insurance company. I don't give two shits about insurance. But my team is good, the work is fine, they let me work from home, so i don't mind it.
I think better advice would be "invest/save" in general. You could just throw money into a mutual fund, index fund, savings account, whatever. If you get a job with an employer matched 401k, max that out. I don't think you need to worry about trying to play the stock market by buying individual stocks. You'll end up spending way too much time doing it for minimal gains over an index fund, and a lot of the time you're just basically gambling on what companies you think are going to do well.
It's tricky. Depending on what direction you take, CS can be very math heavy or not. If you get into algorithmic stuff, deep learning, data analysis, etc., that has a lot of math. But if you focus on, for example, front end development, there's not that much.
I won't lie and say CS has no math. At my university, you were able to avoid higher level calculus by doing a bachelor's of arts instead of a bachelor's of science. Calculus 2 is usually the highest level you have to take, which focuses primarily on integration. I was kinda in your boat of being hesitant to do CS because of the math, but I ended up minoring in it. The CS-focused math is mostly logic stuff and discrete math, which I feel is way easier than calculus. And honestly, calculus isn't nearly as bad as its reputation would have you think (until Vector Calculus, that almost broke me).
Look into it, but I'll say that while the math is there, it's not as bad as you're probably thinking. And if you know you're not going into heavy algorithmic stuff, see if there's a path that avoids most of it. And once you're out of school, you'll never touch calculus again (unless you do a lot of physics, maybe? Game dev, perhaps?)
Short of ernest and maybe hariette, you're one of the top people here I see contributing to Kbin. The site is worse off without you. Keep on trying, and I'll support you however much I can.
I have no idea what alternative fashion is, what constitutes it, and do not consider fashion a core interest of mine in any real sense. Anyway, here's Joan Jett c.1977.
What something you wish you had done during your 20's?
last post here 4 awhile cuz im tired of being the only 1 posting, not like anyone looks at these anyway. wish others would participate ๐คง edit: this isnt 'reverse psychology'. i was petty & sad at 0 engagement & nearly left this mag. i regret my wording