I'm not from the US (born in Eastern Europe), but I'd like to share some of my own experience. I'm 26 now and I barely finished high-school because I thought i

I'm not from the US (born in Eastern Europe), but I'd like to share some of my own experience. I'm 26 now and I barely finished high-school because I thought it was a waste of time and I was working on my own projects and learning everything I could on my own about CS. My last year at school (turned 18 just before the start of the school year) I found a job as a QA in a small outsourcing company and didn't even attend classes. I didn't even care it wasn't a dev job. I wanted to be around devs and see how it is to actually work in a real company. Now the important question here is... Why would they hire me, a person that can legally work, but not having a high school diploma? There were a couple of factors that played in my favor. First - it was basically a contract for 1 year, with 3 months of trial period. I was supposed to take the place of a woman that went in maternity. Second - I wanted a laughably low salary, really low. To me it was a lot of money at that time, but I didn't know my worth. Third - I did really well on the interview and I managed to prove to the owners of the company that I can do this job. They hired me. I did my job well and after the trial period my boss pulled me to the side and offered me a permanent contract. I said yes without even thinking. He said that it's usually normal to ask for a raise after your trial ends and I asked for something stupid like 5%. He smiled at me and gave me a 100% raise and the position of a dev. I got lucky. I've thought a lot about it, but I really think that luck was on my side there. I obviously did the job good, and to this day it's the company I've worked the longest for - over 3 years. By the way I got A's on all of my final exams (had to book holiday to go and take them haha) and got my diploma. After that I decided to enroll in university, but it was just the same as in high school. After 1 semester I couldn't escape the feeling that I was wasting my time. I continued, but in the end I dropped out. I think I made a mistake enrolling in a CS course. I should've went for something that's interesting to me, but not necessarily to do as a living like Economics, Physics, Philosophy, History etc. I like the idea of higher education and I'm still thinking about enrolling and pursuing a degree in a different field, but I wouldn't go for a CS degree again. My 8 years in the industry now have taught me everything I need to deal with it. EDIT: Grammar, spelling