software eng & cs job prospects

I am a sophomore in high school and am interested in software engineering/computer science. However, my dad has told me that I shouldn’t go into either fields because it is too competitive since people can learn it by themselves or at boot camps, and that it wouldn’t be worth it to waste so much money on a college degree when there are people getting jobs without one.

I found it a little disheartening because I’m centering a lot of my extracurriculars around technology and computer science, like robotics team, learning Python/web development/C++, starting a club to teach middle school girls about coding, planning on learning how to create a database for my aunt’s law firm, applying for computer science summer camps, etc. Is it really that competitive?

This is really new for me and there isn’t anyone I can go to in real life with experience in these fields, so if anyone could help me out, that would be really great.

While a non-trivial number of people self-educate CS/SE to the point of being good contributors in the field at work, most people would benefit from the structure of a good CS major degree program to learn the needed foundational principles so that they can work effectively in the field or most of its subareas and continue to self-educate for new technologies.

Boot camps in theory try to cram a large amount of technical content in a relatively short time (commonly 60 hours of class per week over 12 weeks or something like that). However, they do seem to focus more on current buzzword technologies than on foundational principles that traditional CS major degree programs focus on.

There might be a time in the future where you’ll be able to self educate in about anything. For most fields, with enough drive and focus, you could do that now. The question is, at least in the short run, which will certainly encompass the beginning of your career, how easy will it be to get a job if you’re self educated, even if you’re highly competent? Do a job posting search on Glassdoor, LinkedIn or Engineerjobs, and you’ll find most require a degree. Anybody can call themselves a Software Engineer, but only a few can call themselves Google or Apple Software Engineers.

The next thing to do is to look up job placement and salary numbers from several schools you are interested in. You’ll find CS and SE majors being pretty handsomely rewarded for their efforts.

I disagree with your dad. My son-in-law is a clever programmer who did not have enough funds to finish senior year. (He had spent many years back/forth with work gigs trying to get through). He has a lot of experience and does well once he gets an interview. But without the degree, it is hard for him to get interviews.

I also disagree with dad. Years ago you could get good programming jobs without a degree, but that’s a lot harder to do these days.

Also, the boot camps were a fad for a year or two, and then people figured out they didn’t work. It’s like trying to complete medical school in six months. Instructors may cover everything, but you’re not going to absorb much.