Let me tell you a bit about how this works on the other side of the fence. I'm 26, and for the past three years I've worked as department manager in a well-known Norwegian software company, responsible for hiring in my group. I've evaluated a thousand different candidates and hired about a dozen full-time employees from all over the world.

In the end, it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from or what education you have. The only things that matter are whether you're excellent at what you do, that you have proven that you're capable of getting stuff done and that you'd fit in with the rest of the team.

If you start your own business, none of this is relevant, of course. As long as you ship something a sufficient large number of people are willing to pay for, you're set.

But most people work for others, and you probably will too before you've gained a sufficient level of experience to do your own thing. To get a job in the industry, you'll have to prove all of the above, and sufficiently impress myself or my peers elsewhere in the industry to get your inside the door.

An education is a great asset to start with. That piece of paper proves that you have at least three years of experience working with relevant subjects. If you've spent your time well and got to know all the industrious people at your university, you might already know someone working where you're applying for a job. That often gets you to the interview.

But that piece of paper is far from enough. I need to see that you've done something with your life, that you've _created_ something. It doesn't matter if it's contributions to an open source project, running the servers of your student organization or building your own business on the side. Show me that you care, that you love what you're doing, that you're capable of getting stuff done. If the classes are easy, you'll have plenty of time to do other stuff I'm more impressed by.

But do not, under any circumstances, get crappy grades in subjects that are “too easy”. It is _not_ beneath you. You'll do boring and easy tasks even if you're a superstar, and that line of Cs on your transcript is a big, blinking warning sign I cannot ignore. If you don't care enough, you're better off without that piece of paper. Do your own thing, then, but you'll have to work twice as hard to prove yourself.

Not that it's impossible, of course. I have no education. Straight out of high school I applied for a five-week internship at my current company. I got good references from another employee, so I did get to the interview, and I did get the internship. And after eight days, I had a permanent job.

The pay was horrible, the work was - well, entry-level - but that was fine. As long as I could prove that I was great at what I was doing, I could advance. And so I did.

After two years I had the job I really wanted from the start. It was excellent. And after a few more months, I was promoted to be head of my department, despite being the youngest person on the team.

Three years later, my peers are finishing their degrees and applying for jobs. I'm very happy with my decisions so far in life, and think I've learned more this way than I would have done at a university. But I've had to work very hard to get here.