I'm at a fork in the road. I need somebody to give me some advice from their personal journey in IT.
At the moment, I have a college diploma (2 years) in Computer Programmer, and about 2 years of professional experience in the field of software. I'm currently freelancing my programming skills to the public, and am enjoying a nice income, and the rewards of flexibly working on a variety of projects with different cool people.
I'm young (21 years old), passionate about software, technology, the internet, and also business. I know if I ever want to dwell deeper into the software industry, I might have a hard time doing so without a Bachelors in Computer Science.
On one side, I think I'm better off getting my BCS while I'm still young and malleable. Also, the thought of learning even more stuff in my field is really exciting to me. On the flip side, it means another 3-4 years of studying, and jeopardizing my chances of going on vacation and accumulating wealth for a long time.
Considering that I'm already pretty successful with my college diploma, do you think it's a good idea for me to go get my BCS? Will it open up many more doors in the future?
I know if I ever want to dwell deeper into the software industry, I might have a hard time doing so without a Bachelors in Computer Science.
I completely disagree with this statement. If you want to "dwell deeper into the software industry", your drive, determination, and will to learn will be your limiting factors. I've known many CS Masters Degree candidates who, frankly, sucked. I've known CS majors who were very skilled and talented. I've known English majors who were excellent developers. The distinguishing factor between those that could and those that could not was a desire to learn.
I once thought that I needed a degree, but ultimately found it to be a distraction. I even wrote about it here: http://jasonleveille.com/blog/2009/10/the-cs-masters-degree-distraction. I don't know if a degree is or isn't right for you. You have to make that decision. Good luck figuring it out.