The benefit of formal education (beside easier visa, easier access to the hiring pipelines and meeting new like-minded people) are the tests. I was struck so m

The benefit of formal education (beside easier visa, easier access to the hiring pipelines and meeting new like-minded people) are the tests. I was struck so many times thinking I understood something (either through lectures or self-learning) to be proved wrong by the exams or talking to other people who studied the same. It's no wonder that TAOCP is mostly about exercises. But, the algorithms are easy to self-test for understanding and knowledge. The other subjects -- not so much. Formal education helps here.