Anyone here (student or not or graduated CS) feeling like CS schooling (if not MIT or Stanford..etc) is somewhat, not completely, a waste of and money and time?

21

It may sound odd but you are actually in a great situation:
I have a story to tell you:
I used to work in a small agency whose CEO was crazy about digital marketing, he had told me how passionate he was and all the stuff he was doing outside of his degree.
It was like a tech degree focusing on digital marketing. The guy had set up a small company selling website with his friend since they were 15 years old. In the end, because he did all this stuff outside he finished with the best grades and by far.
I think you can be in that situation too now:
You learn a lot outside the CS course, this will definitely give you an edge in the end and a better understanding of your topic than other CS graduates.
Don’t dismiss anything!

Good luck and enjoy!

22

Keep pushing forward with FCC projects and your own and keep in school to get your degree. That paper opens doors…and someday in the future you may decide you want a masters in anything…you cant do that without first having a BS (typically). CS is not front end dev and while front end is fun, you will undestand more about computing, industry & technology with your degree than you would with free code camp.

Just think of it as you being a head of hte rest and having more free time to crush your other school projects.

Find something cool you want to build for yourself, your family or a friend and spend time on that as well.

1 Like
23

Yep…I was able to go to med school, starting 8 years after I graduated college with an earth science degree. Both kind of sciency, but fairly unrelated fields. With just a few fill in classes I was ready to go. Had I quit the first round as a junior it would have really limited my choices. At 20 years old I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. The BS exposes you to a wider variety of fields, topics and PEOPLE … and that makes life easier.

24

I was in a similar situation, only my course was just a one-year diploma course. I also think a lot of it was wasted time, but the opportunity to discuss with other students about reach out to a teacher with a question was really helpful at times and cannot compare with googling Stack Overflow or reading documentation.

I won’t try to advise but I think the term sunken cost can help you think clearer about your options. Anyway stay strong and good luck with whatever you decide.