> The problem with being self taught, at least in my experience, is that you end up being very strong in whatever areas it is that interests you, and whatever areas of CS are relevant to the projects you're working on day-to-day.

I think this is the case even if you receive a formal CS education. I picked the most difficult or interesting classes and got As in them, and barely passed everything else in order to graduate in 4 years. Many students avoided the hard professors to protect their GPA, so it was really easy to register for them since 25% of students might drop the class.

Probably the most important thing a formal CS education does is expose you to CS fundamentals, but in my experience you end up having to be self-taught in a university setting anyway. Most of the professors I had were more interested in research than in lecturing - many lectures were completely incomprehensible. And even with amazing lecturers, I would still have to spend hundreds of hours reading and practicing on my own.

One of those classes I barely passed was algorithms, since my other workload was too great. I eventually had to self-study this subject years later to pass the tech interview torture chamber.

College was mostly an exercise in self-learning or learning how to learn for me - something I am still reaping the benefits of today.