Hey OP, I'm a self taught programmer and former tech recruiter. I wish I had a BSCS for the following reasons:
- it would have been easier to get interviews at places I wanted to work when I had less experience
- it would be easier to get interviews now at places I want to work if I had prior experience at companies like the ones I could have joined with a BSCS
- I'd finally know what I could have learned in school but didn't, and what I just needed to learn on my own
- I'd spend less energy on feeling like I have something to prove to BSCS grads
If I were in a BSCS program, and I wanted to drop out, I'd do the following before bailing:
- prove to myself that I could power through boring work AND do it well to reduce the chances that I'd get fired from a job because I couldn't/wouldn't do the crap work that job required of me
- I'd seriously look at my finances to understand how much time I could afford to be unemployed, because I was damn broke in school, and if I got canned from a good coding job, and had to take a crappy non-coding job, I'd have less time to code, which would make it hard to get another good coding job
- immediately start living as cheaply as possible on cash I had, only using student loan money for school expenses, and completely staying away from credit cards
- line up a job before dropping out, and keep still playing student well enough until I had that job
- talk to my professors about my challenges in remaining interested in school, and see if they can offer me some perspective that might help me appreciate the pros and cons of staying in school, because unlike your boss at work, you can talk to professors about your non-growth/personal development
- find some professional mentors who could guide me on how to be an employee and/or entrepreneur
- stop throwing around derogatory terms like "code monkey", because that kind of job may be the I could get, and I wanna certain I'm not insulting people with whom I'll be working by unintentionally coming across as an ahole
- it would have been easier to get interviews at places I wanted to work when I had less experience
- it would be easier to get interviews now at places I want to work if I had prior experience at companies like the ones I could have joined with a BSCS
- I'd finally know what I could have learned in school but didn't, and what I just needed to learn on my own
- I'd spend less energy on feeling like I have something to prove to BSCS grads
If I were in a BSCS program, and I wanted to drop out, I'd do the following before bailing:
- prove to myself that I could power through boring work AND do it well to reduce the chances that I'd get fired from a job because I couldn't/wouldn't do the crap work that job required of me
- I'd seriously look at my finances to understand how much time I could afford to be unemployed, because I was damn broke in school, and if I got canned from a good coding job, and had to take a crappy non-coding job, I'd have less time to code, which would make it hard to get another good coding job
- immediately start living as cheaply as possible on cash I had, only using student loan money for school expenses, and completely staying away from credit cards
- line up a job before dropping out, and keep still playing student well enough until I had that job
- talk to my professors about my challenges in remaining interested in school, and see if they can offer me some perspective that might help me appreciate the pros and cons of staying in school, because unlike your boss at work, you can talk to professors about your non-growth/personal development
- find some professional mentors who could guide me on how to be an employee and/or entrepreneur
- stop throwing around derogatory terms like "code monkey", because that kind of job may be the I could get, and I wanna certain I'm not insulting people with whom I'll be working by unintentionally coming across as an ahole
- figure out how to pay for health insurance