I can go to meetups and get a university experience for an evening in terms of the quality of talks, the people I can meet, the help I can get. IRC has loads of

I can go to meetups and get a university experience for an evening in terms of the quality of talks, the people I can meet, the help I can get. IRC has loads of great channels to share information. Even Reddit. Flipside is at uni, I found most students more interested in beer and parties and not much support outside of tutor groups. I.e. not much different from watching a bunch of videos and reading books, with a bit of a meetup now and then. I am learning CS stuff online for free and because I can focus on the areas I am interested in, pace myself and not study for an exam it is much more fun. Funny enough it would seem weird to people to take 2 years off work to watch youtube videos about CS but OK to do a masters degree. I guess the piece of paper is defintiely worth something.