I have a BA in philosophy and do software stuff. I always found school pretty easy and went to a 'name brand' type of school, where the philosophy department w

I have a BA in philosophy and do software stuff. I always found school pretty easy and went to a 'name brand' type of school, where the philosophy department was one of the hardest departments there. Some who graduate with philosophy degrees go on to PhDs in philosophy or to be well-paid lawyers, but the majority do not. I was nearly on track to be a Phd myself, but thankfully my advisor kept me from doing so. (The lifestyle of a career professor is not one that I would have done well in, and he, thankfully, realized it where I did not). What you have to understand about a liberal arts college/degree is that you are not learning a bunch of skills that you are going to go out and immediately apply. If you want that, just go to technical college and save yourself a bunch of money. You are never going to /need/ to know about Epicurus or Socrates or Wittgenstein (or history or psychology or economics). What you should be learning about is how to learn. Getting knowledge, applying knowledge, and thinking critically, keeping things organized in your head. Knowing about philosophy stuff isn't the point of a philosophy degree. Philosophy stuff is, for the most part, useless. But it is also hard, and requires a lot of thinking. Computer science is one of the most abstract, thought intensive fields that you can go into. If you can work hard and really improve your thought process before you go into computer science, it will be a great boon to your career. A lot of bad software has been written because the person writing it wasn't able to think clearly. (However, the art of thinking well is applicable everywhere). To me it really sounds like you need an end behind your philosophy degree... and I hope that I can convey the idea that if you push yourself and actually study and try, in the long run, the lessons learned will be a net gain. With respect to the actual degree, you probably already realize how helpful it is to have a college degree on your resume. You probably already feel guilt about how huge a waste of time and money it is to give up on the degree. So my suggestion to you, is not to think about /what/ it is that you are doing, but /how/ it is that you are doing it. It is the /how/ of the work that will be ultimately gratifying for you.