The old traditional path I suppose . . . Years ago, began hacking on home computer (not a PC, but something called a C64, for the curious). Went to college, w

The old traditional path I suppose . . . Years ago, began hacking on home computer (not a PC, but something called a C64, for the curious). Went to college, wrong major, quit . . . bounced around, bad jobs. Started doing some db hacking in Excel (don't ask). Decided to make more than $8 an hour, went back to college, got a BS in comp sci. Loved undergrad this time around, jumped into internships and co-ops with companies as an undergrad. Finished undergrad with a good GPA and did well on GREs, realized I could go to grad school via research assistantship. Cool. Hung out with really smart hackers there. Finished year 1 with absolutely zero interest in staying for PhD (never found really good research/advisor match, would probably do differently now). Finished 2nd year, got a job out in the IT industry, escaping grad school with a MS in comp sci. Almost all my really relevant experience in breaking into the industry came about by internships or deep project work at the undergrad/grad level (usually not classes, but research efforts on the side). These days, I get the impression you can get all the same experience without college. Beware that some big industry players will hold the lack of a CS degree against you (this seems mainly to be a "getting in the door" problem). Mainly, I got into industry by really enjoying coding and grabbing every opportunity to do so where someone was willing to pay me for it. Everything else was a means to that end.