How did you get to be so smart?

Inspired by the ASP.NET vs PHP thread I wondered...

Most of the guys(and gals ) here probably are self-taught, still many managers mainly look at a degree when hiring someone with little or no (business)experience.

I wonder, how many of you have finished school/college/university and actually gotten a degree in Computer Science or a different degree?

Not me I'm actually still working on my AAS for Networking and Security Management (my first love before web development). I will be graduating in February and then onto my Bachelor's I just want to be done lol.

Anywho, I got hired onto my current web development job given my experience and knowledge. I, too, had little "professional" experience before I got the job I have now.

How about you, TimLensen?

I got a computer for my 11th birthday and just started experimenting with it. Reading up on sites like this and gradually getting better with HTML and a bit of JavaScript.

I got in contact with a company which hired me after I wrote a javascript for them at the age of 13. While I worked there I learned writing asp and how to use MS Access and SQL server. I quit when I began with my college education last year. Since then most of my knowledge especially .net related I got from internet tutorials and code samples.

So just like you, I haven't gotten a degree yet(working on it though).

I got a BS in Computer Info Systems with a minor in Business. I got hired right out of college with a job in SQL Server and PL/SQL. Since then, I got Certified with Microsoft SQL Server. But above all, my hands on job experience has propelled me the most to where i am at today. In some cases it IS what you know.... in other cases, it WHO you know.

I got my first computer when I was 13 and took off from there. Only I didn't start off with programming, it was working on computers. I learned more about them, how they operated and such. I started fooling around with operating systems to see how they ticked and also started repairing/rebuilding etc. Then I got into programming and really enjoyed it.

Me... yep, self-taught. Spent hours upon hours at the library learning web development (HTML/CSS) when I was like 13. Come to think of it, I messed around with ASP for a little while, but it never really stuck. It wasn't until about half-a-year ago that I started to learn PHP as a result of going into the blogging world. I got hired this summer as an intern to create a web app. Problem was the company servers only supported asp and thus i started to learn ASP. I'm nearing the end of the internship, and now, I'm deciding which to pursue... ASP.NET or PHP. That's why i started the ASP.NET vs PHP thread.

My Dad got me writing batch files when i was 8/9, just writing menus to load different things like games and word apps etc, was all dos in those days and then we moved to WIN3.11 !!!! hehe
Pulled my first computer to bits at 12 and put it back together first time and it work, but i did make loads of notes, then i got clever and didn't make notes...that is where it all went wrong! But fixing it is where i learnt all about how computers work etc...

Programming came when a company wanted me to write a script for a form process which i couldn't do, so we asked around and someone was going to charge a fortune to write it for us so i decided i would write it myself!! There came PHP!!

I first saw a computer at school back in the pre-historic days when my maths teacher
brought in his ZX81 and showed us that it was better at maths than we were He had
written programs to solve the equations we were working on. It was fascinating!

Then I got a Vic20 for my 13th birthday and mainly used it to play games. One day, I
typed LIST instead of RUN and this gibberish (Hex Machine Code) scrolled by. I decided
that I would learn it.

The rest.... History.

I'm late bloomer. Only after the army, when I was 21 I started to
explore programming.

Started by building small website with classic ASP that was brand
new back then (had to make special order for ASP For Dummies
book as it wasn't available in Israel) and in the meanwhile worked
with Delphi projects.

the ASP For Dummies book was excellent: within one month I
mastered the basics.

After one more month, the website was in the air. I used ASP101
forums for help, and soon enough found myself hooked up, helping
others all day long.

To make long story short: I worked in the same place for 7 years,
during which I finished B.Sc in Computer Science in the University.

I can say that 60% of my knowledge come from trial and error,
30% from forums and the rest from the formal education.

lol this reminds me of my DOS exploring days.... I have spent
hours with DOS, exploring every part. I even found way to
write "secret" files that are not listed anywhere but now I
can't remember anymore..