[jonheller]

I agree. I feel as though my time spent in computer science courses in undergrad and, even more so, graduate school, helped me be a better programmer than I could have hoped than if I had spent those years just programming instead. It taught me to think differently.

Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone. A huge number of people skip computer science degrees and are still highly successful.

But one swallow does not a summer make, which seems to be the approach of many of these articles: Hey, look at me, I didn't go to college and I'm successful!

This seems to be an argument that is very difficult for either side to argue, because I don't see a way you could really look at a statistical analysis of the careers of CS grads versus non grads and make some kind of conclusion.