I utterly failed in school after realising that it didn't matter that much. Unfortunately I discovered girls, booze and fun just in time for my A-Levels and aft

I utterly failed in school after realising that it didn't matter that much. Unfortunately I discovered girls, booze and fun just in time for my A-Levels and after finding more to life than studying hard cut back massively. I picked subjects I was already way ahead of my class in and dropped out as they were wasting my time, then went back in just in time to find that two thirds of my graduation would be based on maths (a course that I never signed up for, but essential for A-Level Physics) and Microsoft Access (I'd used DBase, FileMaker and even Oracle, but this made no sense to me). It was only when I flunked my A-Levels that I realised how little they mattered. Pretty much everything I'd learnt about computers I'd learnt off my own bat (exception: Microsoft Access). I thought about going back, but the prospect of graduating from University at 26 just seemed like a waste of time, so I got myself a job as quick as I could and tried to work my way towards games development. I never quite got there (after flirting with the games industry I saw it was just as bad as Infosec, but even more full of idiots at the time), but overall I think I did ok.