Programmers come from all kinds of backgrounds. Some are still in high school (no college). Some dropped out from college (no degree). Some went to college, but

Programmers come from all kinds of backgrounds. Some are still in high school (no college). Some dropped out from college (no degree). Some went to college, but for something completely unrelated to programming (me). Would I be a better programmer if I had studied it in school? Almost certainly. But I tried taking a CS class, and it was so dry, so inapplicable, and so poorly taught (or, granted, I might not have been the best student), that I walked away from it thinking that programming was nothing I wanted to be associated with, ever. Instead, I got into front-end development. In time, I realized that to execute on the ideas that I had, I'd need to learn web programming — something my school didn't teach. SO, over time, I taught myself. To sum up: If his friend is excited about getting started programming, I wouldn't steer her towards getting a CS degree any more than I'd steer someone interested in music towards getting a music degree, someone interested in running to a kinesiology degree, or someone interested in writing to getting an English degree. People have interests and passions, and they should explore them outside of institutional structures like universities.