[rudedogg]

I was self-taught and went to community college to sort of "validate" that I have CS skills (to help get a job). I think there are a lot of things you do in school that you wouldn't otherwise learn/explore. Things that come to mind are binary, assembly language, how sorting algorithms work and big-o notation. Those topics are kind of dry, and something you're not likely to try and learn about unless it's required.

For me those skills aren't incredibly useful in everyday work (I mostly do web development), but I think having that low level understanding does help from time to time, in a hard to measure way. I feel like it sort of gives you a better intuition on certain things, like evaluating new technologies, why you're having performance issues, etc.

Also watching a teacher code, and listening to other people describe their thought process was interesting. I didn't do a lot of pair programming, but if you go to a university where you do that, it would be useful.

[robotkilla]

self taught - went to community college for graphic design and dropped out. have been a professional developer for 12 years.