So does a completely self-taught computer scientist.
Why throw your money away on expensive bootcamps when you can just teach yourself everything?!
My first programming gig was before college, and I was completely self-taught (this was before CS was offered in 99% of high schools).
Learning how to program was easy. I was probably a better web developer in middle school than I am now (although JQuery happened at the tail end of my web programming days, so there was a lot less complexity. Or at least a different type of complexity).
I needed the formal structure of a degree program to learn CS. Past Linear Algebra or so, the math became too difficult to learn on my own.
I expect I'm pretty typical in that respect.
If someone tells me they taught themselves how to program, I usually don't think twice about it. Just a "me too, aint it grand!" If someone tells me they taught themselves CS, I'm much more impressed (and therefore, in the case of hiring, incredulous).
1. Executable code provides a fast feedback loop that doesn't require instruction. That's hard to find especially for mathematics.
2. You don't really have to understand what you're doing in order to build something. So you can do useful stuff -- which is great for motivation etc. -- and then use that stuff to probe and gain a greater understanding.
3. The psychology is favorable to self-study because there aren't long periods of self-study before the material becomes truly useful.
4. A lot of CS is just more difficult. No one asks why Analysis is more difficult than Calculus -- it seems like a silly question on face. Maybe programming vs CS is similar.
4,310 schools had a college credit CS course as of 2015 (cf 14,183 for calculus.) My anecdotal experience is that this number is increasing pretty rapidly. All the high schools in my area have a cs course.
A CS degree with at least 2 summer internships building real software ticks both boxes.