[anta40]

>> but I'm not even sure a bachelors in CS is a good idea

If your goal if "simply" to be a software developer (who usually use existing APIs), nope CS education is not needed No need to study fancy theoritical stuffs.

Just straight learn anything practical like Java/SQL/Python/etc. And thanks to internet, you don't even have to wait to be enrolled in university. Any high school kids can do that.

>> Most of the CS curriculum is pretty extraneous

It's science, after all. Can we say the same thing about physics/biology? OK, computer science may not be considered as science as in "natural science". Instead, see it as a mix of math & engineering.

Still, the goal of CS department is no to produce practical programmers. At least many many years ago in my 1st day at the campus, the lecturers said that. Although no doubt most CS alumni work as programmers. Yes, I'm aware understanding theories is a thing, and writing software is another thing. That's why we also had software engineering, project management classes.

[leetcrew]

it may not be necessary, but I think getting a cs degree from a regional tech school is still the easiest path for a recent highschool grad to get a good software dev job.