> I use to feel contempt for people really proud of graduating college. The actual college courses were all pretty easy compared to the difficulties of the rest of life at the same time - caring for family members, scraping together rent, etc. Someone proud of graduating college when all they had to do in the 4 years was study was upsetting to me.

>

> I have a more mature perspective now, you never know what struggles people have and the courses are really tough for a lot of people.

Well done on you! I occasionally run into past versions of you. They usually dismiss my BSc degree and my MSc degree with an attitude that is similar to:

"I learned real lessons at the school of hard knocks. While you were partying with your college friends and memorising useless theory, I was making ends meet and learning practical programming by actually doing it."

Truth is, I've never been to f/time university. After school I (very briefly) apprenticed as a auto mechanic for a short while, then left to work in a factory assembly-line (12-hour shifts, all night-shift, 7 days a week) for a little more peanuts than an apprenticeship paid.

I used almost all of my meagre income to pay for part-time university (work at night, study+sleep during the day). Halfway through my second-year courses I finally caught a break and got a job as a computer-lab assistant at a nearby university.

It wasn't actual programming work (show new students how to log in, refill printers with paper, help students who destroyed or lost their access cards, etc), but it left me a lot of free time to waste on usenet, which is where I found my first actual programming job.

I don't narrate my origin story to those past versions of yourself, though. There's no point. Their self-identity includes their own bootstrapping story about how degrees are pointless.