> Coursera unfortunately won't make the cut most of the time. This is a truly bizarre take... Coursera offers much of the same courses you'd get in a BCS or so

> Coursera unfortunately won't make the cut most of the time. This is a truly bizarre take... Coursera offers much of the same courses you'd get in a BCS or sometimes also a MCS degree. Add to this that most colleges are downright awful, with hilariously incompetent professors / TAs... and virtually none really prepares students for working in programming industry, (nobody teaches version control, project management, infrastructure, editing tools, quality control). There's very little a programmer can get from going to college in terms of useful knowledge. In my opinion, it's better to pick up a few books on some theoretical aspects couple years after you have enough of practical experience with programming in industrial setting. Coursera would help here. College would be hugely problematic due to being a huge time sink (inconvenient and rigid times for lectures, workshops etc.), hugely expensive, and, in most cases, outright lower quality. Degree is good to show something to HR, especially if you have nothing else to show... other than that? -- not so much.