For college classes, we were told to study three hours outside the classroom for every hour inside the classroom. Rearranged over a four year period, that mean

For college classes, we were told to study three hours outside the classroom for every hour inside the classroom. Rearranged over a four year period, that means I spent three years in the library or at home studying algorithms, data structures, theory of computation etc., as well as some calculus, biology, psychology. In this rearranged sense, I spent only one year in class, listening to lectures, talking to professors during office hours, talking with fellow students. Some people tell me they will study CS on their own. But to get to my level, they'll just have to spend the same three years as I did on my own studying algorithms, data structures, theory of computation etc. The only question is if that year of sitting in the classroom, talking to professors with doctorates and published papers, interacting with other students etc. is worth the time. As well as the money - a Bachelors at my decently ranked public college is currently $26k tuition plus about $4k for books etc. But you can get Pell grants, low interest government backed loans etc. It was slightly cheaper a few years ago. I think the year's work and $30k are worth it. Spread out over a 40 year career, it's less than one thousand a year. In terms of job opportunities, salaries etc. it's definitely worth it. One thing is students don't even know what they need to know. On my own I probably would have just dove into learning a language like C++ or Java, and then probably would have gotten more specific as I used the language I learned to implement things in some framework for that language. College went the other way - I learned a foundation of calculus, graph theory, theory of computation. Then on top of graph theory I learned data structures, on top of theory of computation I learned algorithms. So when I started using languages, I knew what was going on. Some of the caveats in the article should be obvious, but are worth being there. People should think twice about going to an expensive private school they and their parents can't afford, if they don't have any idea what they are going to do when they graduate. Some of the kids even in level 300 CS courses openly told me they were slacking, doing the minimum to pass. I'm not sure why they were even bothering going in the first place. Before I went to school, many job listings said "BSCS required". Even if they didn't, human resources would often interrogate me about what credits I had, what my college plans were etc. Once you get a BSCS, these things are no longer a problem. Plus you have a technical base that people without a degree who are doing CRUD PHP or Node.js do not have.