<story><title>No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers</title><url>http://www.nocsdegree.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hirundo</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m 39 years into a coding career with no CS degree. But as a compulsive auto-didact (probably a common syndrome among HN readers) it hasn&amp;#x27;t been a barrier. Self-learning is a continual, daily requirement for coders. If you can continue your education as needed for this job you probably also have the skills and interest to learn from scratch.&lt;p&gt;I studied the same books and did the same exercises as my brother the CS major and do feel that my training would be incomplete without that. But I don&amp;#x27;t feel disadvantaged by not doing that within a class structure.&lt;p&gt;The main thing I lack is access to government jobs, which routinely require credentials I don&amp;#x27;t have. But I&amp;#x27;ve probably had a more diverse and satisfying career as a big fish in small private sector ponds.&lt;p&gt;Not everyone can learn coding without externally imposed structure. But those who can&amp;#x27;t probably have an ongoing problem in keeping up with the state of the art.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>daveFNbuck</author><text>&amp;gt; Not everyone can learn coding without externally imposed structure.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s actually not what a CS degree is primarily about. You learn to code in maybe the first 2 or 3 classes. After that, it&amp;#x27;s assumed that you can translate ideas into code and you start learning about different areas of computer science.&lt;p&gt;If you just need to learn to code for a job, there are bootcamps that can teach you that in a fraction of the time and cost.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; But those who can&amp;#x27;t probably have an ongoing problem in keeping up with the state of the art.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I wasn&amp;#x27;t able to learn to code in any meaningful way before college. I had tried to learn from books and online sources but never got beyond basic scripting. After working my way through a bachelor&amp;#x27;s degree and PhD, I don&amp;#x27;t have much trouble keeping up with the state of the art now.</text></comment>
<story><title>No CS Degree – Interviews with self-taught developers</title><url>http://www.nocsdegree.com</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hirundo</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m 39 years into a coding career with no CS degree. But as a compulsive auto-didact (probably a common syndrome among HN readers) it hasn&amp;#x27;t been a barrier. Self-learning is a continual, daily requirement for coders. If you can continue your education as needed for this job you probably also have the skills and interest to learn from scratch.&lt;p&gt;I studied the same books and did the same exercises as my brother the CS major and do feel that my training would be incomplete without that. But I don&amp;#x27;t feel disadvantaged by not doing that within a class structure.&lt;p&gt;The main thing I lack is access to government jobs, which routinely require credentials I don&amp;#x27;t have. But I&amp;#x27;ve probably had a more diverse and satisfying career as a big fish in small private sector ponds.&lt;p&gt;Not everyone can learn coding without externally imposed structure. But those who can&amp;#x27;t probably have an ongoing problem in keeping up with the state of the art.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blymphony</author><text>Not even government jobs are out of reach for you. I work as a federal employee without any college degree doing web development with React&amp;#x2F;Node&amp;#x2F;AWS.</text></comment>