I passed the test they give pregnant teens (I forget what it's called) which gives you an equivalency, midway through my junior year. My parents wouldn't let m

I passed the test they give pregnant teens (I forget what it's called) which gives you an equivalency, midway through my junior year. My parents wouldn't let me drop out and go to junior college, explaining that I wouldn't graduate. Of course, they were right. I am just not good at school. Two years later, when I did graduate, it was 1997. Within months I had a pretty decent programming job that "required" a college degree. Nobody has every asked about my high school diploma. (I, of course, never mention it. Why would I? all the jobs I have had "require" a college degree, and I don't have one of those, either.) Anyhow, I gave my parents shit for years about how much money I'd have made if I had another two years working during the bubble. We are in another bubble, just like '97. If you have the opportunity to get a job now? do so. Once the bubble pops, it will be /dramatically/ more difficult to get a technical job and earn that almost inestimably valuable "first real job" experience. You can always go back to college if you can't hack the standards after the bubble pops. (standards went /way/ up in 2001. I traded down, job-wise, but retained my pay grade and even though I was working at a less impressive company, retained a programmer/sysadmin role. I had worked hard and learned a whole lot since '97- there is no way I would have made that cut without the experience I gained in those few years.) If I had gone to college like everyone said I ought, and gotten out in 2001? Very likely I'd have been unemployed through '06 or so. I'm saying this because one of the guys I worked with in '97... someone more experienced than me, and not significantly worse than me? He ended up making sandwiches through the early oughts. I ended up hiring him for my projects through the mid oughts; He left me for a real job again in '07, if I remember right. I mean... there must have been some difference such that I was able to retain employment through those years and he wasn't... but he was pretty good. If he couldn't get a real job during those years, I don't think a me without experience could have either. My point, here, is that the business cycle has a huge effect on how easy it is to find employment. It is /essential/ to take advantage of the good times in the business cycle to build experience you can use to get jobs during the bad times.