My perspective might be in a minority, because I'm an autodidact. I did go to college- and studied Physics. But it has never hurt me in getting a programming

My perspective might be in a minority, because I'm an autodidact. I did go to college- and studied Physics. But it has never hurt me in getting a programming job -- in fact, I have always simply ignored any requirements listed in job listings.[0] Several times it has come out- many months or years after I was hired, and people are surprised I don't have a CS degree. Its like a prejudice- they assume that anyone competent must have gotten a CS degree. Maybe non-autodidacts need to go to college in order to learn how to program? (But I would doubt this-- you all knew how to program long before you were freshman in college, right? I mean, hackers are born, they're not created in CS classes, right?) On the other hand, the people I've interviewed with and worked with who were non-hackers, who went and got a CS degree, often were weak performers. Much of what's needed in the workforce is not taught in CS programs, and something about the way CS programs are taught seems to often condition people such that they have to unlearn a lot of stuff before they're fully effective in jobs. Of course, I've known lots of good hackers with CS degrees. Hackers do tend to follow the custom and go to college and get their CS degree and arguably could be better hackers than they would have been without the CS degree (though I think its debatable whether 4 years of employment experience or the CS degree makes the better engineer- for some people its one, for others its the other.) When I entered the work force, if not having a CS degree meant I couldn't get jobs it would have been a real issue-- but these days, its is a whole lot easier to start a company, and thus you don't need to be dependent on passing arbitrary HR requirements[1]. If you aren't playing the startup lottery (e.g.: starting an instagram like business and want thus need VC funding) it is vastly easier to start a profitable-from-day-one business now than it has ever ben. And 4 years from now, that's not going away. [0] This also shows how well resumes are read. Mine doesn't lie, but I put job history first. I'd usually have so many interview choices that I'd pick my top 5, do 5 interviews in a week and get 4 offers and a callback. I'm sure some companies did read my resume and didn't give me the chance to interview as a result- but that's fine- it is like a built in bozo filter from my perspective. [1] Frankly I think the requirement for a college degree is a bit like hazing. The people before you went thru it, and so they aren't going to accept anyone who also didn't have to go thru it. It has nothing to do with skills, just a way to exclude people who are different. Lord knows that piece of paper is not proof you can program.