xsevensinzx (7/3/2015)
Here is my 2 cents.
I'd rate it a lot more than 2 cents.
Passion. This is something I want to highlight here. Now, I've seen a few comments on how some programmers without degrees were actually not so great. Even worse, some had over 10 years of experience in programming and were still junior levels at best.
And you can say the same about some with degrees. Personally, I think it helps to have a degree, but it certainly doesn't guarantee thatyou are going to be any good - and neither does "it helps" mean that you can't be good without it.
In fact passion is a real driver towards success; I'm good at computer stuff because I'm passionate about it. My degrees in Maths and Math Logic certainly helped, but without the passion I wouldn't have been able to do the things I did, and neither would I always have had people who wanted me to come and work with them.
At the same time, it's clear to me that passion on its own doesn't always work - there has to be some capacity to understand the stuff as well as being passionate about it. But given the passion and the capacity, a degree is neither here nor there - anything that's needed can be leant (much more easily now than half a century ago, with all the free courses on the web).
But the important thing to remember is that passion and education tend to go together - those with pasion will usually find some way of acquiring the education, even if they don't use a degree course to do it.
Tom