For example: a computer science degree teaches you a lot of stuff, covering an enormous diversity of CS topics, but 80% of it won't have anything to do with a c

For example: a computer science degree teaches you a lot of stuff, covering an enormous diversity of CS topics, but 80% of it won't have anything to do with a career in Software engineering. The stuff you really need to learn, you'll need to learn on your own. That's why I'm saying, take the easy classes, then spend the extra time on an actual software engineering job or internship where you can learn what you really need to learn. The degree is required for a lot of SE jobs but that doesn't mean it's useful (as in applicable to SE).