[w0rd-driven]

I went to college for a bachelor's degree from about 1998 to early 2000. I never finished but I absorbed a breadth of the fundamentals. Once I started getting into assembly and deeper C++ usage I lost interest. This was a little before .NET 1.0 and my CS 101 course made everything coalesce. Prior to that I had cut my teeth on Basic and specifically Visual Basic 3 and beyond but without the fundamentals all I was really doing was creating forms and backing code. It took understanding a different language like Pascal for me to first get into Delphi and then follow the trail to C# where I would eventually land a job as a full time WPF developer from being in primarily an IT focused role.

I think I got lucky and latched onto Pascal at just the right time. I don't think Python or Java would've carried me as far as something about them is actively off-putting. I have no problems reading just about any language and I'm unsure how that happened exactly. I feel like it's likely the result of being mostly self taught with CS 101 bringing about a matrix moment where I finally started seeing the code.

I feel like some of the latter courses in specific languages may be a problem for someone like me but considering I've never completed any, I may be extremely biased. I've often wondered what I may be missing without completing my degree, but for me today that would just be a piece of paper. If I've lost opportunities for something that saddles me with more debt for very little extra return of investment, I'd rather ignore the opportunities that have passed me over rather than do something that feels like appeasement. I admit I could be approaching this all wrong but I've had no problems being gainfully employed for the last 8 years as solely a developer. I know the worth I've brought to the companies I've been involved in even if interview processes in the past have made me feel inadequate.

At the end of the day though it's ultimately going to come down to how you feel. Do you feel you need this? Can you justify the downsides, the extra time and money spent on something you've proven more than capable of handling over the last 4 years? If you can handle the downsides, I say go for it. If you're someone that feels like me, it's probably not worth it.