I'm mostly self-taught, despite the fact that I'm a Junior studying CS at my university. I've learned very little in most of my classes (because I already knew the stuff before taking the class). The two classes where I've actually learned something new are my Intro to Computer Graphics and Android Development classes, and that's mostly because the software I've worked on hasn't been geared towards computer graphics or Android, so it's just new territory (but even then, a lot of what I learned from taking those classes was from doing the assigned projects and googling). All of my other courses have been nothing new to me.

I suggest getting a degree. It opens doors that would normally be closed, like phantom suggests.

In the end though, you need to get used to teaching yourself. You have to constantly learn to stay up with the new technology, and a degree isn't a ticket to the "I know it all" category. Once you're out of college, it's up to you to stay up with technology. If you aren't doing that yourself right now, you're doomed. It drives me crazy when I see people in my CS program who have almost no experience in CS, because if you don't love it enough to spend some time teaching yourself without being assigned to something, you're going to quickly fall behind (not just in school, but in the industry as a whole).

So I'm in the "get a degree and teach yourself" camp.

Relevant.

I'm mostly self-taught. I did do tow years of a BSc in Computer Science and Maths, but I'd already been programming for about a decade by then. I started out with BASIC on an TI-99a and then an Atari 800 followed by a Atari ST. All of that was from reading the manuals that came with them as there was no Internet, and the local library's scant collection of programming books got stolen the moment they hit the shelves.

In 1993, I got my first PC (a 386 SX-25) and was shortly after asked by a family friend to write a program to collect and collate data from injection moulders. He bought me a copy of Turbo-C++ which I learnt from the manual.

It was then that I went to university, where I learnt Modula-2, Haskell, Gofer and then C. In the years since, I've just kept programming as a hobby. mostly in C. Most of my employment in that time has been as a Bar or restaurant Manager.

How many of you program just for fun or are self taught? Im talking about people without degrees in CS?CE/IT.

Outside of one pascal class, one matlab class, and one C++ class I slept through, I am self taught as far as CS is concerned. There's a bit of other education I got that is useful, but not computer based. Going back to school this fall though.

If so how did you learn and what do you do for a living? And how did you manage to learn with other RL issues
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I work as a computer programmer (though not gamedev). I learned by writing really bad (but decreasingly bad) programs for years on end, reading some, and not taking people's advice until I realized not taking it was the reason I kept writing bad programs.

I don't know what real life issues you had. I made a living during the day, and when I wasn't busy playing games in the evening/weekend or doing occasional social stuff, I spent time programming. It's not rocket science.

99% self-taught, the remaining 1% is from generic education (which is more or less a formality at this point). Still going for that CS degree since, well, it can't hurt, but I don't really expect to learn much from the courses for at least a few years.

Starting really early certainly helped, but I think persistence is the most important quality to have, you won't learn anything if you give up at the first hurdle (of course, if the hurdle is ten miles high, you should consider aiming lower first, but you also need experience to know just how high the hurdle actually is).

Relevant.

Now if only he was the Secretary of Education for the USA.

Relevant.

QFT.

Personally, I went to university, but I had taught myself a bit of programming before that (Basic, some C a very small amount of assembler). My degree was in Physics/Computing, but I wouldn't say I learned much in the way of formal programming technique.

More importantly, I've been "self-taught"* ever since. If you start a job thinking you've learned all you need to know, you're wrong. In any field, but especially in programming, you must keep learning.

* I don't really like the term "self-taught". I didn't figure anything out from first principles. I learned from working with people, from reading books, blogs and forums that others have wrote. My skill set is what it is through the helpfulness of others.

Self-taught (from magazines and books, this was the late 80s), except for 1.5 years of secondary ed - where other than liberal arts classes I took a couple higher math (which I have since mostly forgotten), and some 101 programming classes (where I already knew the curriculum anyway). Which is fine, as I am a hobbyist programmer and have a decent profession in a civil-engineering related field.

I started programming in BASIC on a Commodore 64 at the age of 12-ish, dabbled with assembler, but really started learning geting into programming when I got an Amiga 500 and started learning C (at the time, IIRC, the 500 did not have enough memory to compile C++, so I would have to wait a couple years to get into that).

Self taught and uninterested in working in the field. So I just play around. You may now continue your discussion of the merits and faults of a formal education and a degree.

* I don't really like the term "self-taught". I didn't figure anything out from first principles. I learned from working with people, from reading books, blogs and forums that others have wrote. My skill set is what it is through the helpfulness of others.

This. I'd be screwed if it weren't for the Internet (and the awesome resources I've found on it, the most beneficial of which has probably been this site).