Everyone is self taught. School can lead you to water, but it can't make you drink. Every piece of understanding in your head came from your own learning effort

Everyone is self taught. School can lead you to water, but it can't make you drink. Every piece of understanding in your head came from your own learning efforts, whether that be trial and error, reading a book, listening to a lecture, spending too much time on stack overflow, or typically all of the above. School provides structure which helps with discipline, which is a serious obstacle for many people's learning efforts, especially when they are young, as well as exposure to concepts that one may not find easily without both curiosity and good research skills. But ultimately school is never more than a foundation to build off of in one's lifelong pursuit of learning. The difference between high and low performance engineers is often entirely based on how much effort they put into continuing to grow.