<p>
</p>
<p>Um what. Did no one else catch that? You have not only 22 close friends from high school, but they’re also all self taught programmers? If this is true, there’s obviously slightly special circumstances in play. lol.</p>
<p>I think its a mixed bag, but it doesn’t make the degree, or more importantly the classes, unimportant. It really depends on what you’re doing in CS. Game development is a good example with lots of self taught programmers, and with the market being relatively hard to get into even with the degree when compared to other CS jobs, I think it makes it an even better case.</p>
<p>However, for software development and design for companies, the degree makes it a lot easier to get your foot in the door in many places, gives you more flexibility, and there are some key college courses I am aware of that really do make a difference.</p>
<p>I think we’ve been distracted from the title here. I think the title is correct with one revision. “Degrees are not necessary to land a high paying CS job” would be my version. I don’t think anything has changed from the past for the industry as a whole/average. But it’s not an all or nothing thing like people in the thread seem to be arguing.</p>