How to become a world-class programmer

If you want to be a good programmer, you just program ever day for two
years, you will be an excellent programmer. If you want to be a
world-class programmer, you can program every day for ten years, or
you can program every day for two years and take an algorithms class.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-046j-introduction-to-algorithms-sma-5503-fall-2005/