# Thinking of doing a cs degree ? read this **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [September 20, 2018, 3:36pm UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/thinking-of-doing-a-cs-degree-read-this/228503 "2018-09-20T15:36:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 8
**Author:** ![astv99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/freecodecamp/user_avatar/forum.freecodecamp.org/astv99/32/66820_2.png) [@astv99](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/u/astv99)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2018, 4:00am UTC](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/thinking-of-doing-a-cs-degree-read-this/228503/8 "2018-09-21T04:00:05Z")
As someone who’s done a CS degree, I can freely acknowledge that the first year of the material covered during a CS degree can easily be found online for free. However, note that I said only the _first year_. You won’t be able to find the second, third, and fourth year of CS material online easily, or at all. And most CS degrees cover quite a bit of math, that most self-taught people will probably skip completely (discrete math, single-variable calculus, and statistics & probability). And that’s a pretty big hole. Huge, IMO. The material covered in the 2nd through 4th years is typically what the employers who prefer CS graduates look for - not just the material itself, but also the soft skills that are gained, like the motivation/persistence, the ability to work with other people on a team and create a major 1-year-long project, etc. You don’t gain those skills when going the self-taught route. Also, most people who criticize college degrees in general forget the intangible benefits of going to college, some of which were mentioned in this previous thread: [Help about U.S college/university?](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/help-about-u-s-college-university/57582). College isn’t just the degree and academics, it’s a life experience that can make a major positive impact in virtually all areas of life. I digress at this point to say that CS degrees aren’t really needed for those pursuing web development. It’s not a field that really benefits from it. But there are other software jobs that will really benefit from having that knowledge. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.freecodecamp.org/t/thinking-of-doing-a-cs-degree-read-this/228503)._