[niggler]

Your best bet is to leverage your social circles to get an entry point to your first job. Once you have that, then the conversation shifts as people will see that job as vouching for your progress.

"the pursuit of this degree is a waste of time"

At this stage of the game, what you need is someone to lend you personal credibility, and a degree won't do that for you.

If you do see this, shoot me an email (included in my user page)