What's the point of being self taught?

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I'm teaching myself programming and am enjoying it. Possible future career etc. But UH! I can't afford to go back to college! I need a computer degree!! ! You can be self taught in anything all you want as an adult if you don't have a degree to back it up it doesn't matter if you taught yourself coding/Spanish/cooking etc. I guess learn as much as you can so WHEN you can get the degree you breeze through the classes I guess????

I'm not sure.

You can make your own business and profit off of anything you've learned.
Or you could try (eww) to find alternative ways to prove yourself worthy... like a completely different portfolio with stuff you have created, but that's risky.

Even if you go to college, you need to be self-taught if you want to truly learn, as opposed to merely jump through hoops to get the degree.

I’ve been planning to do more or less like you for a lot of years. Perhaps I’ll start doing it for real now. Even if it fails to improve your career opportunities, it’s still better than not trying.

Since you mentioned Spanish…, dudo mucho que te haga falta ningún tipo de certificación para usar un idioma como medio para entenderte con alguien que lo hable

Lo hable quien lo hable, es un esfuerzo loable.

Being self-taught is useful when one wants to go into business for ones' self, as a consultant or something else like that. Plenty of people who are self-taught in cooking end up forming a catering business. There are all kinds of options when you freelance.

In these situations, your work speaks of your credentials. You create a portfolio of sorts (the kind depends on the work you are trying to get.) If you are GOOD, it will show.

It seems that institutions, whether it be when one is applying to graduate school or a large corporation, want to see that degree. Perhaps it is because they have too many applicants to sort through, and that is an easy way to do it? The way I see it, small businesses and individuals care more about the quality of work than how you came about learning what you know.

School is good for a few things, however. First, it is easier to make sure you've covered all the information you need to know (assuming the school is good.) Second, it is the quickest way to learn the information. Teaching one's self is a great thing, but it is very time consuming and it is hard to stay motivated. Usually, you are doing the learning on the side, in addition to all the other responsibilities you have in life. Third, school provides accountability and motivation to actually do the work and do it well.

BUT, school is also expensive and time consuming. It is extremely difficult to fit school into life if one is already working.

I lean towards being self-taught, but I also have a bend towards being entrepreneurial and I do work for myself. I do a lot of things that I don't have the right qualifications on paper to do. Very few people care, or even know.

From what I understand even without a degree if you know what you are doing there are places you can go and take tests to get certified in whatever computer stuff you learn. That way without a degree you can still get the job.

You know the greatest living scientists were self taught. Issac Newton and Thomas Edison was self taught. Thomas Edisons education came from his mother and reading R.G. Parker's School of Natural Philosophy. He supported the Montessori style of education. But is good to have that diploma in your hands. You have a better at a higher pay than those who do not have a diploma.

This is not necessarily true. It depends on what field you are in, how good your work is, and in general what opportunities are available. Also, if you work for yourself, you actually can make more because you can charge what a company might charge, but you have less overhead and you don't have to split the money between employer/employee.

I teach music privately and can charge less than a music school would, and still make more money than the music school would pay me. The downside is that it is harder to find students.

I agree with Spiderpig. Self-teaching yourself at something and dedicating yourself to learning about it means you're interested in the subject enough to pursue it academically in the first place.

It's proof you actually HAVE interest in the subject, because you even enjoy pursuing it even non-academically and outside of the classroom. That HAS to count for something.

Plus, even without a degree of some sort, just having the skill comes in handy in other ways.

^ Yes. And why can't you do online school with student loans? You may not be able to afford it now, but you could afford to pay it back later.

You learn more. The point is that it's motivating enough to keep you working on what's actually important. Most of the people in technology these days who would put their degree requirements first are working on borrowed time; they're not the ones with any skill usually, just MBAs.

And besides. If you land anywhere with the best education you can get - to do anything real WITH it you have to self teach or be stuck in like kindergarten. Learning to self teach and self motivate is the best preo.

As I understand it you don't necessarily need a degree to get a job as a programmer. My partner is one and he doesn't have a degree. He is also self taught albeit with twenty years experience.

For programming it's more about the portfolio. Get stuck in practicing programming as many things as you can, so you have some websites to put in your resume that a potential employer can look at, and list what languages you are proficient in etc.

You need to weigh the expense of school against gains you might make having the degree. In school, you lose time doing work unrelated to your carear goals. I was taking computer science courses at a school with a struggling department. They have had that department running for 20 years, but the staff was a patchwork of very old professors and very young/new professors. This made the style of computer programming taught a little strange -- old style vs new style, and conflicts between them.

I had an old professor teach Java 1, and a young professor teach Java 2 -- they each had different styles and I had to relearn parts of Java 1 to accomidate the new professor's style requirments.

You have to play politics in school, which also wastes time and energy. They pressured us to join their CS-club (I didn't). Since I was not in the club, I was immediately an outsider crashing their party in classes. I left the program after 4 semesters, which was enough to get me a really good start. I am fully capable of learning anything else on my own. So, maybe you can compromise -- take a few intro courses and then learn the rest on your own once you have the basics understood.

You may want to read this

http://www.collegeatlas.org/earn-a-college-degree.html