I had a successful software engineer career without a degree, but some time ago I decided to go for it (to leave open the option of pursuing the PhD). So, here

I had a successful software engineer career without a degree, but some time ago I decided to go for it (to leave open the option of pursuing the PhD). So, here are the results: - Change in my career possibilities and new job offers: exactly zero. Nada. Nil. I work as a software engineer in finance (high-frequency trading), and there domain experience matters much more than the amount of computer science education received. (If I would have been a quant trader, not an engineer, it would be another story -- education matters there). - Mind expansion: some. I've got some preliminary math education (so I am not scared of reading quant papers anymore and can immediately work with formulas), and also there were excellent courses on coding theory and automata. Some other courses (e.g. computer graphics) was on subpar quality, but this is not my specialty anyway. Was it worth it? For me, that't a definite yes, psychologically and intellectually. But if my motivation would have been only related to career -- the answer would be no.