For what it's worth, it worked for me. I dropped out of high school (I was failing anyway) and "apprenticed" at my place of work when I was 17, two years ago.

For what it's worth, it worked for me. I dropped out of high school (I was failing anyway) and "apprenticed" at my place of work when I was 17, two years ago. For about 8 months I wasn't paid, then I was hired. Over the last 6 months I feel I've contributed very nicely to the company's project. The problem is a lot of employers aren't as nice as mine was. In fact, I doubt he would have let me come on had he known the full extent of what he was getting into. I asked questions like mad about the project until I had a knowledge base wide enough to really sit down and figure things out for myself. This translated directly into lost time for one employee (My mentor, Andy. He's an awesome guy). But in the end they have another productive employee. I'd say the company's happiness with me strongly resembles this graph, minus the falloff at the end: http://www.tylerreed.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/the-ebb-and-flow-of-social-networking.png http://www.tylerreed.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/the-eb... So a company would have to be extremely patient to do something like that. And the downside for me is that I don't have a degree. That doesn't matter in terms of raw ability, but it does matter for salary and other employment options.