While it isn't directly related to the topic of the thread, is the Imposter's Handbook a suitable purchase for someone who didn't major in CS in college to "catch up"? I had two intro to CS courses during my undergrad and took several night courses while employed at my first job and did get a tech-facing career, but once I got that job I haven't had the energy to go back and tackle things like Data Structures and the maths I have to take all with the pressure of a grade.
I went back to college after having worked as a developer for a few years, which helped me focus on what mattered. That book looks like a good overview of many important CS topics.
I recommend the following topics (in roughly this order):
- Data structures
- Sorting algorithms
- Search algorithms
- Algorithmic complexity analysis (Big O) - Important
- Databases
And these topics that aren't in the book:
- Set theory
- Networking
- Security
- Encryption (learn what to do and what not to do)
My take on the rest of the book:
- The history of computing is interesting but not necessary to learn (plus there's a lot more than what's in that book)
- Software design patterns and principles are nice to know, but they're only useful when you're in a position to design the software (not likely for an entry-level job)
- Study functional programming before trying to learn lambda calculus, unless you like abstract math (guessing you don't)
- Learning how compilers work is not necessary unless you're working on a compiler or writing much low-level code (sounds like you're not)
- Testing is good to know, but it's not really that hard to figure out how to do
- Unix basics can be useful, depends on your situation
