SKETCHUPHRENICS

You should start with free-hand.  You should start with manual drafting I'm telling you.  When all of the online community telling you that you can learn this the easy way without having go to school, but you have to.  You should stay in school as much as you can.  Until you can't take it anymore, that's when you stop and find other sources of learning.

Then you can move on with computer-aided design.  On-line or in another setting.  Somewhere secluded?   I don't know.  It's your choice.  I'm telling you now that it's not easy to go to school and learn architecture everyday.  But it's not really as easy as it looks.  It's not easy as it is shown everywhere on TV, on books, in the movies.  

Now we can do 3d.  Haha.  We can use Sketch Up and emulate our own worlds.  The world we want to live and get to the groove in.  Who knows how much further software we can go.  Rhino, 3dsMax, Blender, whatever.   It can only get better everyday.