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I think it would depend on whether your college education included a significant number of courses that would help you perform well in web application development. For example, I know of some programs where only 1/6 or so of the material is somewhat related to web application development (including the English classes and otherwise being generous). Also, do you have any relevant experience or projects?

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I've learned everything related to web development on my own. Other than a few security related courses, I wouldn't say I learned much about web development in any of my courses. I've got a few personal projects that I've done in Rails as learning experiments and have definitely mentioned those in my resume/cover letter.

Also it depends on where you live and other things like that. "Median annual wages of wage and salary computer systems analysts were $75,500 in May 2008." (http://bls.gov/oco/ocos287.htm) "In May 2008, median annual wages of wage-and-salary computer applications software engineers were $85,430. The middle 50 percent earned between $67,790 and $104,870. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $53,720, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $128,870." (http://bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm)

According to https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm, $73,045 is the typical starting salary for a Berkeley EECS major, although several people I know have gotten offers 10-20k higher.

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