"A degree isn't worth anything, but you have to have one to be able to say that."
I went back and got my CS degree after 10 years of programming experience.
From what I've seen, degrees don't matter when the economy is good (as it appears to be at the moment), but the lack of a degree can become a "reason" to lay off, not to hire, or to assign to drudgework projects, when the economy is bad.
This also requires guessing what the economy will be like when you expect to get out, because it's hard to get a good job as a new graduate when times are bad as well.
Ideally, you want your degree and a couple of years of new, full-time, experience before the next recession. Your pre-college experience will become nearly worthless during the 4+ years you're "away" from day-to-day production programming.
What you learn in college is focused on theory, so won't generally be on cutting-edge languages, libraries, and APIs, or the sorts of equipment that will become available out in the world in the interim (Is cloud computing anything more than a specialty elective class yet?).
Longer term, having the piece of paper will show employers that you can stick to something for the years needed to complete it, and you'll vaguely-but-well-enough remember the algorithms that you'll call as existing libraries rather than ever hand-coding again, but mostly your degree will be a check in the box.
Will your dream job require that box to be checked?
Just my opinion, but from having worked both without and with a degree. All-in-all, I'm glad I have the degree, but it took several more years than I originally anticipated to catch up and surpass where I feel I would have been without it.
Google has to deal with some manufacturing issues related to their phones and tablets, but does not entirely depend on China for manufacturing.
Apple is overly-dependent upon Chinese manufacturing to have hardware at all. Leaves them beholden to Chinese rules, whereas, if they had manufactured elsewhere, China would have to deal with demand for a needed foreign product.
Now, however, if Apple pulled out, they would leave all that manufacturing expertise behind, and would face a lack of skilled labor elsewhere that they largely caused in the first place.
So, yes, ethics and money clash yet again, as money was designed to make happen. If they didn't pay people, a lot of dirty work wouldn't happen, and a lot of goods would be unavailable as a result.
If you tweet about ethics on a computer, chances are, that computer's hardware makes you complicit.
"We voted for you, comrade. Here is old malware from deepnet kiddy porn site post for to confuse."
Could be Russia pissed about puppet twitching without permission, or could be Bannon (via Cambridge Analytics?) pissed about puppet twitching without permission.
I went back and got my CS degree after 10 years of programming experience.
From what I've seen, degrees don't matter when the economy is good (as it appears to be at the moment), but the lack of a degree can become a "reason" to lay off, not to hire, or to assign to drudgework projects, when the economy is bad.
This also requires guessing what the economy will be like when you expect to get out, because it's hard to get a good job as a new graduate when times are bad as well.
Ideally, you want your degree and a couple of years of new, full-time, experience before the next recession. Your pre-college experience will become nearly worthless during the 4+ years you're "away" from day-to-day production programming.
What you learn in college is focused on theory, so won't generally be on cutting-edge languages, libraries, and APIs, or the sorts of equipment that will become available out in the world in the interim (Is cloud computing anything more than a specialty elective class yet?).
Longer term, having the piece of paper will show employers that you can stick to something for the years needed to complete it, and you'll vaguely-but-well-enough remember the algorithms that you'll call as existing libraries rather than ever hand-coding again, but mostly your degree will be a check in the box.
Will your dream job require that box to be checked?
Just my opinion, but from having worked both without and with a degree. All-in-all, I'm glad I have the degree, but it took several more years than I originally anticipated to catch up and surpass where I feel I would have been without it.