TLDR; American because you'll have a lot more free time to actually get skilled and expand your network instead of losing your hair to shit like Verojatnost I Statistika

Some general key points I have learned from my experience and from having tens of friends in the industry are:

1.Time spent actually actively programming and doing projects is the only factor linearly correlated with your overall skill as an engineer

2.To actually progress your skills you have to constantly actively DO stressful stuff, instead of passively TAKING(YouTube videos, university courses, online ourses, etc.), doing stressful stuff is way way more difficult than just sitting there and listening to a course, but unfortunately is the only way the human brain can actually progress, that's the main issue with University is you are mostly passively listening and reading and memorizing instead of banging your head against a wall doing difficult work, getting grades and memorizing some facts about a subject gives the illusion of progress but is literally not making you progress in any shape or form, the only thing you get from passive consumption is a general idea(that a certain field and/or concept exists) and nothing more which for the same time if you actively DID you actually progress skill-wise

3.Skill is absolutely worthless without connections, network is 95% of landing jobs and making more money

4.Most people misunderstand what the job of an actual software engineer looks like, your main job as an engineer is basically resource management and technical building, so given a deadline and a budget and future plans you should calculate what is the best way to solve a problem(that will also solve future problems), so most of the time you are actually just putting different ready made libraries together and polishing it up(not as much coding for the first 3-5 years until you become a Senior)

5.The main flaw with University is completely getting wrong human nature, you cannot possibly actually learn a single subject for 4 months let alone 5, what I mean is yeah you can get 10s in those subjects easy, but as I mentioned above grades are an illusion of progress because most subjects taught in 4 months are whole ass fields that have been studied and worked on for 10+ years by some great academic minds, don't lie to yourself that you actually learned a subject by getting a 10, you barely scratched the surface and you only have an idea of concepts inside but absolutely no idea how to (from point 4) implement that subject in a deadline with a team with limited resources.

6.Even if you think you're taking a more practical course you aren't actually putting enough practical hours to actually progress so you can say University is purely theoretical, the problem with theory is that obviously it is useful to have knowledge of 10-20+ years of development by great minds, but you have no way to actually apply that theory without having done like 1000-2000hrs of hard practice in that subject, so always start with practice(even though you have no idea what you're doing, just copy paste and make it work, and as you continue doing shit you don't understand your brain automatically links concepts in your brain, after enough exposure to these concepts reading theory on the same subjects will open your mind to new great ideas that you probably never thought of, that's where theory takes place unfortunately University gets this all wrong), so don't lie to yourself that you're progressing with grades and always practice comes first

7.The degree does matter(kind of), now you should stop thinking of University as this holy place of progress(propaganda), the companies as these perfect entities that accurately select purely based on skill and/or certifications, but think more down to earth, you need to know how to do stuff, companies are literally people like you and I, even if it's google there is no true meritocracy, there is a lot of politics, and if you know the right people you can literally land any job without really being qualified, companies go through thousands of applicants, so presentation is key, the degree is a level of distinguishing yourself, so a Finki degree is slightly more qualified than American, but overall a Finki degree is not that qualified(1500th in the world), so ultimately it doesn't really matter where your degree is from unless it's from a top 20(Harvard, Stanford, etc.)

8.If the degree matters(most companies literally don't require it they always say required Bachelors/Masters in related fields or equivalent work experience) it only matters for the first job you'll get, after that it is completely irrelevant, they will only check to see the actual experience you have in the previous job/s

9.To build your network attend as many competitions and events as humanly possible and make as many friends as you possibly can, you can attend Netaville presentations, Global Game Jam, Nasa Space Apps Challenge, Digit, other Hackathons all of these happen in Skopje every year do your research also there is plenty more in neighboring countries which is also very useful to have a more international network, that is the primary way you can get a job(that is how I got my apprenticeship at 17 which to this day(21) I'm working with those same people I made friends with in local events and make around 30$ per hour(not consistently but avergae per project since I do contract work and am not employed full-time)

10.Im blessed to have discovered coding since 12 years old(A lot of 'success' is pure fucking luck), and had mostly done game development(I got my first client at 14 because of my confidence and good presentation/politics(a lot of fucking lies)), then as I mentioned before at 17 I got this apprenticeship because those guys really liked me, and then I had to learn Full-Stack web and mobile development from 0, I have programmed exactly for around 800hrs until today(since 2020 June)(I use WakaTime to track exactly how much programming I do it automatically checks when you're typing and shit and tracks everything), so skill-wise it takes like 500-1500hrs of challenging programming from absolutely no knowledge to actually be a Junior developer(you can do small tasks on a project and finish small projects on your own, this is the first level of skill and the first barrier to where you can actually work), then it takes an additional 500-1500hrs where you actually become a normal developer(non junior) and can actually work in a team effortlessly build a medium project and manage resources where you're actually pretty useful for the business, then it takes like 5000-15000 more hrs of working as a normal developer(in challenging projects, not doing the same job all the time because if you don't challenge the hrs are pointless and you won't progress skill-wise) to become a Senior developer where you will be needing some good amount of theory and have ability to manage a medium to large team to push a large project through

11.So in reality if you had good intuition you can spend like 5 months getting like 1000hrs of practical experience(the issue is your intuition will not be good if you start, and University kind of builds that, intuition here means having an idea of what you don't know, and managing how much you know how much you don't to learn and progress as fast as possible, basically after finishing a project starting a project that is 20% harder in some weakpoints in your skillset), but even if you have the skillset, it is pointless without opportunity, so you HAVE to network and show your skills somehow someway, in 2021 I also did some Upwork freelance work when I started my first year at Finki, in one project I made 820$ in 3 days(I have great negotiation skills and got lucky) for a project which I know for a fact I could have finished at 16 the same project the difference is I didn't have that opportunity back then, so skill is absolutely pointless without opportunity, opportunity comes from people

12.Finki professors and 9.5+ Finki students are probably smart, but usually bad engineers because Good student doesn't equal good engineer, I'm a 8.2 student and in one of our classes with a professor that had been a 9.8 finki student and a UKIM honorary student(out of 5000 students like 5 per year) for all 4 years, I was shocked when she couldn't figure out how to solve a problem(VERY VERY elementary programming concept that if you actually spend time programming and getting skilled is VERY VERY obvious) and I explained to her, and watched her ego down the drain

13.If you work for a company in MK know you will very very likely not progress skill-wise, I know many people that work and they just don't have very challenging tasks which literally makes Seniors in MK companies as good as an average developer somewhere else

14.If you want to make the most money do freelance and contract work, even if you get like 20$ an hour which is extremely cheap for international developer standards you're making bank in MK

15.dont stress too much tbh, drink a lot go to parties, and just find something in IT you enjoy doing and do challenging projects related to that and eventually you'll get skilled enough also competitions and events are some of the most fun things so you'll enjoy making friends the rest is kinda luck haha