I have (and still do to a certain extent) suffered from depression. I’m not a psychologist so take what I say with a grain of salt.
At your age it’s pretty normal to feel overwhelmed by the possibility of facing the world when you feel you are less than equipped to do so. But keep in mind one thing: from my personal experiences, depression (or whatever it is you are going through) can stem from “spiritual bankruptcy”, for lack of a better term. I look at life as something that you need to have tools for in order to succeed at it. But those tools aren’t degrees or money or other material things. Those are just things that “life tools” can help you acquire.
I don’t know shit about you and your post really doesn’t tell us very much about you at all, but if I had to make some sort of evaluation based on what you have posted, I would guess that you see yourself and your “worth” as a human being in terms of material things. Which isn’t uncommon at all. I struggle with spirituality (I am NOT talking about religious beliefs here; I am talking about improving yourself as a MAN from within, which religion can help with. But those who belong to organized religions certainly haven’t cornered the market on spirituality) and when I do I have to ask myself what it is I need to do to be of help to others. I find comfort in the security that money can provide, but it does not improve me as a MAN one bit; helping others does. Now some would argue that helping others in order to make yourself feel better is anything but genuine altruism, but that is immaterial.
I think you need to ask yourself what it is you value in life and what it is that really makes you happy. Over Thanksgiving weekend I spent time with my family, and let me tell you, there is a lot of spiritual bankruptcy there. I can only take the same fucking conversations about sports, cars and money for so long before I get sick of it and realize that these people have nothing to offer me in terms of spirituality. There is nothing that I can offer them that they want either. I work with recovering alcoholics and drug addicts on a regular basis, and when I am receiving phone calls from people I know who are struggling with heroin addiction or alcoholism and they have no place to stay and they simply want someone to talk to, it angers me that as soon as I hang up the phone (when I am 150 miles away) the biggest problems these people I am spending time with want to discuss is what flat-screen TV to buy while there are others out there who genuinely want what I have, and that is spirituality.
My point is that while you are working toward a degree and money, something that all of these family members that I saw over the holiday all have, you may not be any better off than you are right now. Why? Because these things don’t mean shit. My family members aren’t happy. Half of them have no real relationship with their children and the other half are so empty inside they mask it by constantly discussing the only things that they do have, which is money. I suspect that you understand this deep down, which is why you don’t feel all that excited about the prospect of having a degree and the money thing is getting you down. I’m not saying that you should drop out of school and take a vow of poverty or that being dead broke isn’t a big deal (it is), but you should not look to these things as sources of real, tangible, lasting happiness, because they are not guaranteed to give you these things.
Get out and work with people who need help. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter. Or better yet, work with under-privileged children. Stay in school, graduate, take advantage of any counselors or therapists that the school may have for students in your situation. But do not think that a degree, a job and money will end whatever funk you are in. It may bury those feelings for a while, but you need to do things that make you of service to others and you need to decide what REALLY will make you happy, NOT what best buries these feelings you are experiencing.
Fuck, I am getting way too heavy here now. Look, long story short: help others in need because this will do three things for you. It will a) help you realize what really matters in life, b) it will put you in contact with people who are grateful for what you can offer them and c) it will expose you to people who are way worse off than you are, which gives you perspective.