Hello guys my name is Bogdan, im a High School student, i started learning programming since i was a freshman ( i am junior know) and i was thinking to go to college get a degree in programming but not sure. I wonder how much money does the real world developers make and what degree should i got, i also interested in contract jobs like how much does freelancers charge for a business website with custom CMS, and should i even go for it. I live in USA please give me some suggestions! 
I know PHP OOP MVC , JavaScript and some jQuery. I love programming i think i got addicted most of the time i read books and practice that in real like. Thank 
When I look back I actually wish I had tried to get an internship at an agency so that I could learn the technical side of things alongside the marketing side of things. When out in the real world I found that I was doing work freelance for bigger agencies and quickly found myself having to get a lot of marketing background down so that I could be more inventive in what I was creating and do things in an informed way (or should I say in a way that was relevant to them).
Doing stuff for agencies is ultimately where I found my career and I know loads of freelancers and small shops who experienced the same kind of thing.
In retrospect I think I would have moved faster & started my own agency faster if I had done that. So my advice would be to worry less about the technicalities of the degree itself (obviously it has to be relevant to your career path) and look towards getting an internship in a good agency.
thanks
Hi Bogdan,
Congratulations on learning to program! It’s great that you know PHP and jQuery, and that you even picked up more advanced concepts like MVC. As a programmer, you’ll never starve and having learned all this by yourself you have also proven that you can learn new stuff.
You are exactly the type of person who should go on to study at a university. We need active, independent students who are passionate about their studies. At university you will find your peers: other students who also love to program, who also do their own projects, who know different languages and have different ideas.
And you will find that there is a lot more to learn! You will learn about algorithms and their complexity. You will learn about many more design patterns than just model-view-controller. You will learn about security. You will learn about teamwork in programming teams, how to use version control systems like git, how to plan you project and still stay agile.
Your have a talent for programming and a talent for learning. University is the place to make full use of these talents.
If you are quite sure that you want to stick to web development: find a degree program that specializes in that. If you are also intrested in more general subjects you can study any computer science program.
Here’s some quora links to help you find suitable degree programs:
Hi Bogdan .
Do you try to find job without degree in programming ? I think you must try to find job , and I’m sure you can find it
I know PHP OOP MVC , JavaScript and some jQuery
. Or you can even work by freelance .