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This is exactly right.

I taught myself coding, but struggled through some of my CS computer science classes because I hadn't learned some (important) boring details. My peers who hadn't coded before, but were otherwise bright, excelled in these classes and have had impressive career trajectories after school.

Based on my personal experience, I don't believe prior experience with programming before college is that predictive of engineering talent.



"excelled in these classes and have had impressive career trajectories after school."

This also has to do with networking. I was a CS major and a friend of mine, who couldn't code and wasn't interested in coding, was also a CS major.

He joined a fraternity and after graduation, could have had a high-paying coding job with basically no interview, because of his network.

I learned too late that going to college is 10% learning and 90% getting into the right social/friend groups to help you with your career.

This is what self-taught coders (with no degree) usually miss completely and have to spend years working up the ladder of shitty companies.




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