<p><pre><code> > The programming I do does not require advanced CS
> knowledge, even though it never hurts to know them.
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It's more than not hurting to know them. Although you may not ever use the knowledge directly, knowing these things affects your thinking in a myriad of subtle ways.<p>My degrees in mathematics appear pretty much useless on the surface, and rarely if ever get used directly. But when I think about business, algorithms, implementation, planning, etc., I find myself explaining things with words in my head such as "the topology" or "the metric" or "continuous" or "min-max". I then usually have to expand these to explain what I mean, and I've found yet again that the landscape in my head, put there by my studies, is helping me think things through in a way that others find difficult.<p>You won't need your degree, but studying this stuff (if it's a good school and you study it "properly") will have long-term intangible benefits.<p>The question is whether they will out-weigh the additional direct experience of working, not studying. Without knowing you I can't say, but I would tend towards learning this stuff.