I never ended up finishing my degree because it became trivial and pointless by the time that I got a job and started gaining actual real experience and learnin

I never ended up finishing my degree because it became trivial and pointless by the time that I got a job and started gaining actual real experience and learning that the college/university teaches you idealistic and fantasy concepts of how IT should operate. Reality I've experienced is that it's absolutely nothing like that, places are build upon decades of mixed generation technology, only upgrading a little part here and there. I've moved on from the dig-in hands-on of IT and now do a strange combination of electrical engineering and network engineering. I was working in IT at an amusement park which I cannot compare to any other business to how it functions because the best comparable description would be to describe it as supporting IT for an entire town and all its businesses. What I ultimately learned and took away from that is a fresh BS graduate is basically worthless in comparison to someone who has at least one single year of real experience because it boils down to the requirement that schools do not teach. That skill is troubleshooting, to be able to swiftly and intelligently resolve a problem. It's not something my schooling ever put any major focus on and so as I gained more and more experience at a vastly faster rate compared to going to school, I realized how worthless the degree really was. It was just a meaningless statement. The second thing is all the certifications, and that's what, I believe, is valued higher than having a degree, but about equal to experience. Search engines have provided me with more knowledge and answers than 8 years in school could ever come close to. That's just my experience and view.