I once attended a top-10 American university but I am currently not in school for several different reasons. Chief among them is that I did very poorly two semesters and even failed one of them (got two F's) which put me in automatic suspension. My major is not CS but math.
I am in a pickle at the moment. After I was suspended I got a job at a niche IT company in the area. I am employed as something of an IT generalist; my primary responsibilities are Windows systems administration/networking but I also do some Android, iOS, and .NET development. I have released a few apps to the app store under my name and my company's name, and we have done work for a few big clients. I started working at my job about 1.5 years ago and I am somewhat happily employed but I do not see it as a long-term fit because it is a small company with little opportunity to advance.
I would like to move out to California and particularly to the Bay Area to get a job at a more reputable or exciting company, even at a lower rate of pay, but I am not sure if I should do that or try to go back to school.
If I went back to school, it would take 1-1.5 years to graduate and some $. Best case scenario I would graduate with a 2.9 or 3.0 GPA. It is a top-10 school, but that's a crappy GPA.
If I do not go back to school, I will be a field where most people have degrees, without a degree. If anything goes wrong I could be really screwed as I feel I will get no respect without a degree. On the other hand I really would like to get started in the field and get more serious about developing good development practices, learning new languages/frameworks, and working with people who know a lot more than I so I can learn and grow as a developer and eventually do my own thing.
Basically, I am wondering:
Should I just go back to school? How much does the bad GPA / good school reputation weigh in? What about the fact that I am a Math major and not a CS major (have never taken a CS course)?
Does my skill set as something of a generalist bode well for me finding work at a start up in the Bay Area?
If not (2), should I hunker down and focus on producing a really good (or a few medicore) iOS apps? Android apps? etc...
How would you look at someone who did great in HS, kind of goofed off in college and eventually quit, and got into development?
Thanks for any thoughts or input.
