> I could have learned what I did in a much shorter time.

I think people with CS degrees working the field could probably re-cover all of the content of their degree in 4-5 months of independent study, however, there's a lot of school which is deliberative practice. Hours that you need to spend getting good at understanding concepts, writing proofs and building the skill of critical thinking in a computing context.

I think post graduation there's a tendency to compress that period and forget about the hours of practice and just being terrible at building things that it took to gain the craftsman's mind.