Do you need a degree in Computer Science?

Web Developers are the new restaurant waiters -- they're a dime a dozen (if you don't believe me, check out odesk, elance, and rentacoder), and they're the fall-back job if your degree proves useless.  Because web dev gigs are so easy to land, and because a portfolio speaks louder than credentials, why get a degree at all?

For starters, it's the difference between ~$65k and ~$80k mid-range (in San Francisco) , with faster career advancement if you have a degree.  Second, it's the difference between a serious career and odd-job one-offs.  While I personally would rather an $80k career, it's not for everyone.  There are many who don't want to devote their careers to programming, but may need some extra cash or what have you -- and $65k is still attractive, better than what waiters make.  So I'll put it this way: if you're planning on programming for the rest of your life, get the degree.  If not, then check out web dev opportunities in LAMP, AJAX, and especially CMSs (Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress) at gig-boards like odesk and elance.  These gigs usually get you $15-$30 hrly, which aint bad.

Now that my opinion is expressed, a bit of anecdotal evidence is in order.  I paid for college through websites I wrote for clients, mostly in Drupal.  Towards the end, I started to feel disallusioned with school's "Design Patterns," "Parse Trees," and "Finite Automata" -- none of which I was using in my real-world projects.  In the end, my portfolio was louder than my Bachelor's, the former no thanks to the latter.  I resented college and it's expensive waste of my time.  

In the last few months, however, I've been job-hunting like a maniac.  I built a site for tracking resume submissions (automated follow-ups forthcoming ;) ), and tracked over 100 for myself, which led to many interviews.  These interviews led to a shift in my thinking, and I began phasing out my PHP-heavy portfolio in favor of my degree showing true Computer Science exposure.  One interviewer told me "I'm looking for engineers, not PHP freelancers.  This job is in Drupal, but if you don't have the Computer Science fundamentals you're not going to fit this position."  He asked a number of questions on Design Patterns, Big O, etc.  At first I thought these were "covering the bases" questions, but later found that many were questions with specific reference to points of the company's existing projects where I might be working.  Another interviewer said, "I typically don't take PHP programmers seriously.  I'm considering you because you have Java and engineering experience."

After many interviews and dismissals my PHP experience, I started to notice that the only jobs I was finding on Dice.com (vs the gig-boards I'm used to) were in true object-oriented languages (.NET, Java, Ruby on Rails) with job-titles indicating true Computer Science (such as "Software Engineer" rather than "Website Designer"), and job descriptions listing all those things you hate from your software classes ("Experience in Software Development Lifecycle, producing documents such as SRS, SDS, SPMP", etc etc). 

I started to panic.  I wondered if I put all my eggs in one basket, and began looking at some salary comparisons (check out indeed salaries for some quick comparisons, and salary.com for more details with your specifics in mind).  Indeed, I found that the average freelancer skills (PHP, Drupal, Wordpress) were worth some $15-$20k less than software engineering skills in Java & .NET.  

So the salaries are worlds apart, Dice shows little in the way of LAMP careers, and my interviewers discounted my freelancing history and praised my course curriculum.  As it turns out, enterprise programming is founded on everything learned in your courses, and freelance programming is not.  So when you're browsing gig-boards and craigslist, don't be fooled into thinking Java is dead or that you'll never use Design Patterns.  The truth is that there are two worlds in programming jobs: one for those with degrees, one for those without.  Neither is superior to the other, it depends on your goals.  If you want to do software development for the rest of your life, get a degree.  If you want to freelance for some cash one the side, hit up the gig-boards.

Also, check out software engineering radio, these guys talk about real-world enterprise stuff which will prepare you for interviews.