> This really applies to tech, where honestly people don't really give two shits about your degree if you are a good programmer or have experience on hot projects.
In my experience, this is true up until a point. However, I've been coding since elementary school, and topics like algorithm analysis and graph theory are not things that one typically encounters making games in Java or web apps with RoR.
"If you want to be a world-class programmer, you can program every day for ten years, or you can program every day for two years and take an algorithms class." - Prof. Erik Demaine (MIT)
It's not terribly hard to teach yourself algorithm analysis or graph theory if you have the motivation. Hop on Amazon, buy CLR, and then go through the algorithms, work through the proofs, and implement each one.
BTW, you can't become a world-class programmer by programming every day for ten years or by programming every day for two years and taking an algorithms class. Try programming every day for ten years and taking an algorithms class. Every world-class programmer I know has done that - they have both the experience and the formal knowledge.
I think you can only get those if you go to MIT or CMU. The vast majority of CS programs and lecturers aren't that good, and certainly worse than what you could teach yourself on your own.
I'm attending a public school, with a CS department consisting of 6-or-so people. They taught me well :-) Definitely not what I could have taught myself.
In my experience, this is true up until a point. However, I've been coding since elementary school, and topics like algorithm analysis and graph theory are not things that one typically encounters making games in Java or web apps with RoR.
"If you want to be a world-class programmer, you can program every day for ten years, or you can program every day for two years and take an algorithms class." - Prof. Erik Demaine (MIT)