[drewlander]

I have no college degree, or college classes at all, and have been doing systems engineering/software engineering for about 13 years now. All self taught/learning on the job. While it is nice not to have had college loan debt, I know there are things I may have a better grasp on if I spent months learning a particular topic. In fact, I am jealous of people who actually got to spend time being taught computer science and learning interesting things. I am sure there are topics/approaches/patterns that would be very helpful. Not that I am complaining, things certainly have worked out for me very well, it is just something else that I know would "boost" what I already know. On the flip side, I know of one job that was a very short interview, as they said they could only offer X (which was laughably less than what I was making currently) because I had no degree. What I knew meant very little (to the place, not the interviewers), having the piece of paper meant more. You could say "their loss" but on the flip side, I have no idea what opportunities I have missed because of it.