Best Computer Science degree?

[davewill]

Curious as to what your thoughts are on a homeschooled high schooler using TESU/Study dot com to earn his Bachelor's in CS (age 19) while doing high school.  Is a Computer Science degree from TESU not as appealing as say one from Virginia Tech?

You can ask this same question about any degree. It comes down to name recognition. A degree from a prestigious school will always open more doors than a degree from a lesser-known school if you're a new grad. If you want to talk CS degrees specifically, it depends more on where you're trying to get a job.

• If you're looking to become a software developer, a degree isn't required at all, but if you do have one, it is always best if your degree comes from a school with a top-ranked CS program.
  
• If you're looking for a job that is more science-, research-, or engineering-based, then you'll need a CS degree and it will probably need to come from a top program (probably with ABET programmatic certification) to have the best chance of getting past the initial screens.
  
• This all assumes you're looking at junior roles since senior roles are more about proving competency and suitability through past work.
  

The TL;DR is that if your CS degree doesn't come from a highly recognized college or one with a top 20 CS program, they are all pretty much the same, and not much better than having no CS degree at all. The better recognized, the more chance that your resume may rise to the top of the screening list.

Once you start looking at more senior roles, your past experience and accomplishments become far more important than where you went to school. Having a strong professional portfolio (a GitHub repo for example) trumps education every time. This is also why people without CS degrees often find it easier to find work in software development since they took the time they could have been earning a degree to create apps that can be used in their portfolio to demonstrate what they have done and suggest what they have the potential of doing for their next employer.

That's my $0.02 as a long-time software engineer and hiring manager anyway.

As someone who had a long software career without a degree, and now has one, I'd say the difference is more in WHERE you will find work. An engineer without a degree will find difficulty getting hired by companies like Intel or Google or Qualcomm. They may also have trouble with certain segments like government contracting. I found myself working for small companies (<200 employees) before I got my degree.

As far as the difference between some place like Virginia Tech and TESU, it's safe to say that VT has much better name recognition, and would play much better, especially to large companies in the region. Going to a school like VT will also afford the student the chance to intern while still in school. After you have a few years of experience the difference may not be important, but it will make a difference in the beginning.