Am considering quitting college and learning online. It's much better for me personally. I have learned more via Internet in a week than what I did from college in years. I am from India. Most of what they teach is pretty much useless & outdated and the teachers seem to think of technology as a static thing. I don't know if I can ever convince my parents to let me quit. What they think is college = job = good life. Thanks for letting me post here. Had to let it out.

i find collab projects help you learn more as long as the people who are collabing help each other you learn alot

No degree = no job? Not to brag about but I've been earning as much if not more from freelancing part time than my friends with fresh degrees & I know I can do so much more if I dedicate more time into learning more relevant technologies. College seems like a waste of time. I am not saying that everyone going to college is wrong but I only speaking in regards to me.

I am*

however you are freelancing job security at a decent hugh wage is better than no job security and a higher pay.

you could be dropped at any moment.

I'm from India and every one of us has a similar experience at some point. After having graduating I realized, the syllabus isn't at fault, it's us. We choose to read shittier books and sub standard content instead of actual textbooks of the likes of Stallings, Navathe.
I'd strongly recommend you look at your actual textbooks prescribed by the university, and study from there.
Lastly, imo no-one really cares if you have a degree, but a lot more people care when you don't.

dnt quit ur college.

u can learn while attending classes

Same for web developers? No degree = no job?

BTW, thank you for taking the time for being people I can get advise from. Kudos to you all.

@Webster no, I work in a web company that doesn't really care about your degree and academics. As long as you're good at what you do, you're good to go! But there aren't many companies like ours, people are slowly getting there.

@jsdev +1, not a lot of companies but am in no hurry. I believe a company that hires based on portfolio would be the one most suitable for me. I have made a few sites, one of my projects got a shout out from an official of a multi-national company. I plan to keep learning online and freelance for a while and then when I have a good set of skills I will go for a company.

I've found that out of 5 yrs of college I only need 2 or 3 subjects in my job now. But having gone to university and persevered in getting that all important piece of paper shows any employer that you're serious about your job and able to do structured work. Actual knowledge is secondary, as junior you're expected to learn as you go.

Not having a degree can work out for you as well, if you're brillant at what you do. The thing I would worry about most is probably the pay. Often - and sadly - a mere degree already gets you a higher salary.

I can't speak for the market in India, but in the US, we had the same attitude for a while: if (student.collegeDegrees > 0) { student.defineProperties (obj, { "goodJob": { value: true }, "highSalary": { value: true } }); }

A lot of those graduates are working at or just above minimum wage, so it's flawed thinking. However, college really isn't designed for job preparation. The experiences and viewpoints you're exposed to while obtaining a college degree help you grow as a person.

If your parents are helping you while you finish school, I strongly suggest finishing, even though it may be optional in this field. During any spare time you have, practice self-study and work on projects to build your portfolio. Then when you graduate, you have a degree AND a portfolio, and while nothing is a guarantee, anything that makes you look more qualified is generally a good thing.

The exception case being if you've already received a great job offer or if you hadn't started college at all.

also, something I realized after graduating, @Webster , the best thing from college is your network. I used to freelance for a long time, and most of my work was directly or indirectly from my network

You shouldn't stop college, it can feel it's worthless but it isn't actually, it's not about the degree but you will surely see a more vast area in subjects then you learn yourself, if you think you can do better yourself then why dont you challange yourself and study outside college after college and make some badass stuf to surprise your costudents. Or try to learn during a vacion of 1 mont without stopping and compare yourself to the popular coders...

Without speaking for how things work in India, I'd say college gives you a broader perspective and university trains you in general problem-solving and gives you many useful tools. If you think the takeaways from either are the coding skills or language knowledge you gain then you have roo narrow a focus. These days I use 2% of the facts I learned in university and 100% of the problem solving patterns and scientific approach.

I've heard someone say that in India, companies look for people who really master few technologies and don't spread out too much, as a sort of sign of "reliability", as opposed to USA or most Europe where they favor people with lots of different skills (correct me if I'm wrong). Maybe that's why you feel what you are studying is outdated or useless, because you feel like you need to expand more skills.

Honestly from experience, I can tell you that your first five years will be harder. You'll need to prove yourself and learn quickly, be agile, son!

That said, after five years of good experience there's no difference, you'll get paid the same and doors will open.

It's all up to you, the path you take. Either way results in endless complexity, which is what were truly after here, is it not?

Another point: The kind of companies that actually require degrees aren't ones your want to work for anyway. That's such an antiquated way of thinking that it speaks loads about them. Good luck, brother.

@trevorj You speak my mind. That's exactly what I have been thinking. Thanks for being here. :)

maybe, just to be sure, try and look at job ads by companies you'd be interested in working for. see whether they require degrees or not before you decide.

in any case, having one can never hurt. i like to think of my diploma as more of a reference. so employers know there's an accredited institution that says i know what i'm doing, and this might help their decision along to give me a chance to prove myself. helped a lot getting my first job. after that, it all comes down to experience anyway