At one time I kind of felt the same way - I had a degree from a good school, and really it seemed like all I got from it was (maybe) increasing the chances that

At one time I kind of felt the same way - I had a degree from a good school, and really it seemed like all I got from it was (maybe) increasing the chances that my resume would make its way to someone who could potentially hire me. But the longer I've been in the software development world, the more I've seen its value to me. The school I went to made it really easy to dive into projects, build weird things, talk to brilliant people about idea - in fact often it was hard not to (if you wanted to do well). I really took that for granted. What opened my eyes to that benefit were some of the amazing developers that I've been able to work with since - they did the same things in college, and often they had to really look for those opportunities rather than stumble in on them like I did. I didn't go to school to learn how to not be afraid to play with (and throw out) ideas, but it's probably the best thing that came out of my degree.