I know of many developers who forgo a college degree because simply put, they don't need it. In my case, it made sense to get a degree due to how little I had to pay for it and my career objectives.

Many believe that a degree is necessary to get a solid development job in today's market. Although it does help quite a bit, a degree is not necessary. The biggest thing is experience. However, you need to be able to make up a little extra for the lack of a degree with experience.

Why is this?

Degrees say to a recruiter, "I've spent 4 years working full-time learning and building things related to this job". This makes candidates with degrees pretty solid candidates for positions.

So the key thing is working and building up experience to be able to convey the same confidence that a degree gives recruiters. How do you do this? Build projects and showcase your knowledge.

Many young developers don't realize that once you land your first development job (or maybe your second), no one really cares all that much about the education it took you to get there. All they care about is your previous work experience and how you would fit into their team and organization. However, getting that first opportunity can be especially difficult without a degree to show employers that you know what you're doing. This is why it's important to create a well put together LinkedIn profile, be active in looking for jobs, and work hard to learn and showcase what you're learning.

Once you can land that first Junior Dev job, any degree you have really doesn't matter. Most companies are shifting their recruiting focus to not look at degrees as much as they look at skill and previous work experience now.

Yes, there are certain jobs where having a degree is still mandatory and in some cases, master's degrees are mandatory for the job. Typically these are very niche positions or very algorithm and data-intensive positions where mathematics and computer theory is pretty important.

My advice if stuck debating whether it's worth getting a degree or not is this:

• Weigh the cost of a 4-year degree with your ability to learn much of the same material on your own. In my case, I really needed the structure to help me understand what employers are looking for, so a college education was very beneficial. This combined with a low cost for schooling made a degree very lucrative for me.

• What are your career aspirations? If you want to be a web developer than a college degree may not be for you. Most web developers I know didn't pursue degrees and are still incredible developers and very successful still. Do you want to be a data-scientist? Chances are you'll need a degree for that. Want to be a software engineer? You're probably on the fence about what you want to do then. Write down the pros and cons to both and feel out what's best for you.

The most important thing I want to re-iterate is that if you have the drive to learn and succeed you do not need a degree to be successful. Yes, there are situations where it can help a lot, but don't listen to anyone if they tell you it's absolutely mandatory.