Proving Your Worth as a Self-Taught Developer
blog.pamelafox.org
blog.pamelafox.org
Web developer is an over-used term. Not all web developers are going to get something out of a comp sci educational background. You won't pick up anything for design, a lot of the front-end work, marketing, etc. from comp sci classes.
ALL developers are self taught. You are being self taught as soon as you start banging away in the editor and taking regular breaks to Google things you don't know. Does comp sci even teach you to be a developer at all? I don't have a comp sci background, but it's not vo-tech. If you want to get even more picky, you could say the instructor doesn't teach you the material, rather the instructor guides you and you learn the material yourself. Either way, it's all about learning to learn.
Landing a job / gig is knowing how to sell. Sure, some jobs have an HR department acting as a blocker, but there are enough jobs / gigs out there that you don't have to worry about that. Will yourself into the job, convince the decision maker that you are everything that person is looking for. You aren't selling bullet points on a resume / cover letter. Rather, you are building a vision / experience.
Learn how to write well and communicate effectively. Screw the web development classes, take technical writing courses. Be good with people.
Doing work for free, open source work and pointless apps are all a waste of time for most people. Your time is valuable, every project you do should pull its own weight. Build something that you can monetize. It will probably fail, so add that to your portfolio and try again. Shipping is a hugely valuable skill that even a lot of employed web developers don't have. If you can ship something that's modestly successful, then your value to clients as a web developer sky-rockets. Alternatively, build a utility that's highly valuable to you that has functionality you can't duplicate in existing applications (personal dashboard for example.)