[goranb]

I'm currently pursuing my CS degree after a couple of decades working as a programmer. The big difference is that you will miss "why" and learn mostly "how", unless you have a very inquisitive mind. On the other hand, not everybody can afford years of no income or crippling debt.

[czbond]

I agree with you; I have a CS degree, and when I work with those who learned the programming mechanics (aka making code work) - are often skipped other topics that came in handy for me making other decisions. I can understand why code is slow (eg: BigO for cpu or memory), what structures and algorithms to use in different scenarios (Data Structures & algos), how things are working (Computer Architecture, Programming Languages [theoretical construction of languages], Compiler design), and Automata. Absolutely, these can be learned by oneself - but I find they rarely are.

Edit after thought: Of course, when to use an Array vs a Linked List in your specific language (for example), might not matter if you're doing web apps of medium scale taht one can throw more EC2 instances at

[jcims]

Is there any part of a CS degree that educates students on how networks operate or what a protocol looks like on a wire? Most of the new grads I work with seem to think of all of that as a black box and are completely stuck when things aren’t working.

[hellisothers]

This edit is the critical leap, 99% of software engineering doesn’t benefit from this depth. For sure there are positions that do but they’re the edge case.

[learc83]

I worked for almost a decade before going back, and I had the same experience.

As for debt, there's no need for crippling debt though if you go to a state school and are planning on working as a programmer.

[medymed]

I imagine other students would be extremely grateful to have your experience to know the motivation behind some of the seemingly arbitrary ‘whys’ they are required to learn.