garyshort.org

I don't think degrees are irrelevant. I did an IT degree in Australia and majored in software engineering and I learnt a lot of stuff about design and good practise that would have taken me much longer to learn from experience.

The great thing about what I learnt was when I started doing software development for real and came across a problem that my level of development skill couldn't handle, I found a lot of the time I'd remember something from the course and then by applying it to my problem it'd help me move my level of understanding up a bit more.

Experience isn't irrelevant either though. I just think sometimes learning stuff that other people have figured out already is quicker than having to figure out everything for yourself.

I think just doing a degree to make it easier to get a job misses the point a bit.

I agree a degree is good if you can find a suitable one, as I say, computer science is not the same as software engineering. You were lucky to find a degree course that matched up to the skills you were looking to aquire. As more employers seek employees with more rounded skills, (not just CS per se), then universities need to adapt to that demand.