| "A degree isn't worth anything, but you have to have one to be able to say that." I went back and got my CS degree after 10 years of programming experience. From what I've seen, degrees don't matter when the economy is good (as it appears to be at the moment), but the lack of a degree can become a "reason" to lay off, not to hire, or to assign to drudgework projects, when the economy is bad. This also requires guessing what the economy will be like when you expect to get out, because it's hard to get a good job as a new graduate when times are bad as well. Ideally, you want your degree and a couple of years of new, full-time, experience before the next recession. Your pre-college experience will become nearly worthless during the 4+ years you're "away" from day-to-day production programming. What you learn in college is focused on theory, so won't generally be on cutting-edge languages, libraries, and APIs, or the sorts of equipment that will become available out in the world in the interim (Is cloud computing anything more than a specialty elective class yet?). Longer term, having the piece of paper will show employers that you can stick to something for the years needed to complete it, and you'll vaguely-but-well-enough remember the algorithms that you'll call as existing libraries rather than ever hand-coding again, but mostly your degree will be a check in the box. Will your dream job require that box to be checked? Just my opinion, but from having worked both without and with a degree. All-in-all, I'm glad I have the degree, but it took several more years than I originally anticipated to catch up and surpass where I feel I would have been without it. |