The biggest difference that I've noticed between myself (a college dropout) and my degreed coworkers is that they tend to just accept mindless repetitive tasks

The biggest difference that I've noticed between myself (a college dropout) and my degreed coworkers is that they tend to just accept mindless repetitive tasks that are a waste of their time. (Ones that are like a lot of academic busywork based on rote-learning). I can't stand those types of tasks and naturally try to automate or remove them. Some of my best successes have come from that, and from seeking out other areas in the company where people were doing that. HR was laboriously manually retyping and reformatting job listings although they were using a system with an RSS feed that could pull them in automatically. A half hour (or less) of coding permanently eliminated one of their daily drudge tasks so that they could focus on other things. No one asked me to do it because no one ever even thought of it, but they loved it. Sometimes it's not worth automating or simplifying something, but it's usually worth considering or trying. Degreed people seem to have a 'this is the way I was taught' or 'this is the way it's always been done' mentality. That's not the way to innovation and big victories. Degreed coworkers are great for quality control though - meticulous code reviews. And they seem to be usually better at organizing/planning (although not always as good at dealing with unplanned events). Best is a mix of people that work well together despite their differences.