> It may come as a surprise to you, but many professional programmers are self-taught. In high school, we once had a professor from a university visiting us to

> It may come as a surprise to you, but many professional programmers are self-taught. In high school, we once had a professor from a university visiting us to encourage to apply there. He made a short speech, where he also said: "It's important to learn and know how to learn by oneself. To demonstrate that, consider where Nobel prize winners (he used another illustration) are taught. Answer: there is no institution which teaches how to win Nobel prizes. Nobel winners reach that level themselves." Self-teaching is a sort of default, being both easiest to start and highest to achieve level of learning. Just like most successful people are self-made achievers, the best knowledgeable people are self-taught. There can be exceptions, but those are rather exceptions, AFAIK.