Every bit of the knowledge I accumulated in IT/CS was all thirst and self education via raw trial and error, elbowing and socially engineering my way into exclusive pockets where the old hats played, and sheer will. My first experience was kernel64, as a child, and I later entered serious acquisition circa 386/28-33mhz. Before sound cards, cd drives. AOL private rooms and Efnet were my classrooms. I get nostalgic remembering my first BO Hack victims, my first VB progs, my first nix compiles, first nmap scans.

I recently returned to community college to obtain CompTIA certs, the first of any proof I can provide of my accomplishments, and I must agree, the people I come across with ba/ma degrees and even simple certs, have next to no idea what they’re doing. I guess nothing trumps real world experience where it’s hack or starve, design or lose domicile, etc. Not to mention back then we did it for the love of the art, for bragging rights only a handful of people would understand… but I wouldn’t trade it…ever.