i'm a self taught programmer. i fooled around making web sites & basic crud apps using php for a few months before i began advertising on craigslist. i severely undercharged initially to get my foot in the door (it was a lot of money to me at the time though lol) but i gained enough experience after about a year to eventually land a job doing production support. fast forward 6 months and i landed my current role as a software engineer for a major financial institution (w/o a college degree).
things are definitely changing. downtown + midtown are nothing like they were just a few years ago. the neighbourhoods are another story; i'd go as far as saying they haven't been worse...
i'm in the states and have gotten pretty far pretty quickly without one but i think it really depends on the person. most/ all of the people i work with have one.
