1. CS programs tend to focus on fundamentals that are building blocks for many things in the industry, even with a fast-pace of change (or more often high level of churn) so "keeping up" is probably better left to specialized programs or bootcamps to teach very specific technology rather than academic/foundational principles. However it'd probably serve CS tracks well to introduce something like a CompTIA A+ course as a 101 class since a lot of the tracks are predicated on students knowing the basics of a computer, which is increasingly less common as the post-PC era kids are becoming college aged.
2. It depends. There aren't really any shortcuts to becoming a well-versed or competent engineer. Being self-taught still requires putting in as many hours (or probably much, much more) than going through a traditional 4yr CS program and that probably is a much more difficult path in almost every case.
3. I don't know how much weight is put on this in general, but my experience is that not having a degree results in a lot of applications being discarded immediately. I personally don't care about someone's background as long as they know what they are doing or are capable learners.
4. I think this is kind of flipping in the opposite direction in the last handful of years. There was a sweet spot in the 2010s where self-teaching using online resources was very doable and it wasn't terribly hard to find high quality content- but with the rise of CV-boosting blogspam that just rewrites the "Getting Started" page of a popular framework (a large chunk of Medium) and AI-generated content being pumped to the top of web search results it is becoming very difficult to find high-quality, accurate content to base learning off of and I think returning to books or forms of learning provided by traditional ed will become more common as there is some curation and signals for quality.
5. My background is self-taught through being generally interested in computers and just learning anything I could through using Linux/FOSS tools/engaging with various communities adjacent to those interests. College wasn't accessible to me for cost reasons, so I got a job as a tech support rep after high school to get a foot in the door of a software company and climbed through QA to software engineer, to infrastructure, devops and whatever else in-between. I think college is still the best path for most people because self-learning either requires insane amounts of discipline or an unusually deep interest in computers and tech for its own sake (not just as a means to an end of a job). I also think the tech industry has matured a lot and the era of getting hired by being self-taught with some demonstrable skills is over just due to the sheer volume of job seekers in the industry and a degree being the minimum gate used when evaluating new hires.
Comments
1. CS programs tend to focus on fundamentals that are building blocks for many things in the industry, even with a fast-pace of change (or more often high level of churn) so "keeping up" is probably better left to specialized programs or bootcamps to teach very specific technology rather than academic/foundational principles. However it'd probably serve CS tracks well to introduce something like a CompTIA A+ course as a 101 class since a lot of the tracks are predicated on students knowing the basics of a computer, which is increasingly less common as the post-PC era kids are becoming college aged.
2. It depends. There aren't really any shortcuts to becoming a well-versed or competent engineer. Being self-taught still requires putting in as many hours (or probably much, much more) than going through a traditional 4yr CS program and that probably is a much more difficult path in almost every case.
3. I don't know how much weight is put on this in general, but my experience is that not having a degree results in a lot of applications being discarded immediately. I personally don't care about someone's background as long as they know what they are doing or are capable learners.
4. I think this is kind of flipping in the opposite direction in the last handful of years. There was a sweet spot in the 2010s where self-teaching using online resources was very doable and it wasn't terribly hard to find high quality content- but with the rise of CV-boosting blogspam that just rewrites the "Getting Started" page of a popular framework (a large chunk of Medium) and AI-generated content being pumped to the top of web search results it is becoming very difficult to find high-quality, accurate content to base learning off of and I think returning to books or forms of learning provided by traditional ed will become more common as there is some curation and signals for quality.
5. My background is self-taught through being generally interested in computers and just learning anything I could through using Linux/FOSS tools/engaging with various communities adjacent to those interests. College wasn't accessible to me for cost reasons, so I got a job as a tech support rep after high school to get a foot in the door of a software company and climbed through QA to software engineer, to infrastructure, devops and whatever else in-between. I think college is still the best path for most people because self-learning either requires insane amounts of discipline or an unusually deep interest in computers and tech for its own sake (not just as a means to an end of a job). I also think the tech industry has matured a lot and the era of getting hired by being self-taught with some demonstrable skills is over just due to the sheer volume of job seekers in the industry and a degree being the minimum gate used when evaluating new hires.