[internetter]

I taught myself how to program as a teenager by… programming. While I didn’t have an academic background, I was perfectly capable of contributing to OSS and working. Rarely ever did I think “I wish I had a degree to do this.” The little bit of academics I did need I also self taught, like time complexity. The only case really where the degree may be helpful is leetcode type interview questions where you need to know the algorithm.

[theteapot]

And most CS grads forget all that after a few years because it's not relevant to what they're actually doing.

[ironman1478]

So you basically have a CS degree. I learned C in 7th grade and was completely self taught. I then got a CS degree because I just wanted to learn more about it and be around people who were also enthusiastic about CS.

There is something disingenuous about the parent post. Highly motivated people will always be good at what they want to do. I'm good at guitar, but never went to music school. Highly motivated individuals though are the exception, not the rule. If you take two random individuals, one with a lit degree and one with a CS degree, the CS degree person will know more in the domain of CS and be more likely to write useful software.

The parent post is conflating being highly selective about personality type and attributing it to the degree.