Can you excel in this industry without a degree?

Question

My question is do you need a bachelors or associate degree in their field to get your foot in the door? Is your project enough?

Answer 1

You don't need a degree, because programming is essentially just pure creativity, which can't be measured by a degree whatsoever.

Answer 2

you DEFINITELY DON'T NEED ANY COMPUTER SCIENCE DEGREE , once you are good enough you will get a job or you can even start your own company, but if you're at the position where you can get a degree easy enough, definitely go for it

Answer 3

There are a lot of aspects of good software design which a degree will greatly benefit you. This is especially true for design of OS, hardware drivers, and computer languages where you need a thorough understanding of low-level data structures, hardware, and pros/cons of language features.

However the field as a whole is changing so rapidly such that a good portfolio of software you have developed can be just as valid, especially for more generalized programming. You can think of it as lot like a fashion designer or architect where personal portfolio is equally important as education degree. Ideally you have both for best chance at most jobs.