[_gabe_]

> A degree (In which you've proven you can understand these algos and spent 4 years studying)

Unfortunately this means next to nothing anymore. I have a bachelor's degree in CS and Math, and I found it very useful. However, I host a fairly large community and provide tutorials on coding projects. I've had several people working on a masters thesis in CS reach out to me because they're following one of my tutorials for the thesis. They then ask a very basic question that indicates they don't know how a package manager works, or how to look up documentation on a library. I think these two tasks are some of the most basic programming tasks available, and if you can make it through 5-6 years of college in CS and still not have the most basic understanding of this, then a degree means absolutely nothing anymore.

Some more anecdata, I've had several friends who graduated with me and can hardly code. It's unfortunate, but I think degrees are just an expensive piece of useless paper that tells you absolutely nothing about the individuals abilities.