All good engineers are self taught... to a degree. That doesn't mean they don't hold advanced degrees in whatever, but great engineers IMO are the types who wh

All good engineers are self taught... to a degree. That doesn't mean they don't hold advanced degrees in whatever, but great engineers IMO are the types who whether they spend their 20th birthday in a dorm or on the job, have been interested/passionate/doing something in engineering since before they even knew to call it engineering. YMMV, but I've never met a great software (or mechanical) engineer that wasn't into it before school COULD have happened, regardless of whether they went.