I'm self-taught, without a single credit hour of college. In high school a friend took a programming class and showed me a bit on a demo machine at radio shack,

I'm self-taught, without a single credit hour of college. In high school a friend took a programming class and showed me a bit on a demo machine at radio shack, and that hooked me completely. I've worked mostly for smallish companies, and did consulting for a while. A couple of years ago I had quit my job to work on my own project (a way too ambitious startup idea), but almost immediately I got an interview for my current job, which was too cool to pass up (space exploration). There's more than one way to make a difference in the world. Now I head up the dev team here. Over the years I have spent a lot of time and money on books, and continue to do so. There's always something to learn, and many people way smarter than me continually creating/discovering new things to learn. If I had earned my degree in the normal time frame that would have graduated in the late 80s, and my education would now be woefully out of date, so I'd still have to continually learn. Am I recommending not going to college? No. It's probably better to go. But certainly you can have a career without it. But either way, get used to learning and pushing yourself.