I think self-directed solo learning on a computer is how a lot of us ended up in the tech industry.
I was learning a heck of a lot more outside of school in the late 90's, teaching myself how to make websites, than I was learning inside of school.
I was learning a heck of a lot more outside of school in the late 90's, teaching myself how to make websites, than I was learning inside of school.
I got my electronic skills from a technical club where we had soldering equipment, stuff to make PCBs, a lot of salvaged electronic components to not be afraid to accidentally fry one, and some adult guidance. I learned most from older kids who I could watch working on their stuff. This is something a school keeps missing.
Real human societies do not consist of thin slices of people of the same age, and kids are wired to learn by watching and imitating, not just by listening and following instructions. Schools keep ignoring this, sadly.
the idea is that, as you mature, it is also part of your development to teach and guide others, you have mastered something when you can teach it. Equally younger kids learn not only from the teacher but by example and mentoring from older students.
From my experience it really teaches older kids to act responsibly, forces more emotional maturity and just not be dicks to younger kids, and for younger kids it really accelerates their learning.
When I entered high school in 1968, all the girls went to home economics classes and the guys took drafting and/or auto shop. Still no electronics.
In 1969 I stumbled upon free self-guided programming access to a 360/67 (punched cards, WATFOR) at the local military base and spent the next two years teaching myself as much programming as I could, while my high school remained oblivious to the computer revolution.
When I got to college in 1971 they only offered graduate degrees in computer science; undergraduates interested in CS were expected to take "math sciences".
Apparently it takes a while for education systems to realize where the future is headed.
The self directed autodidact thing is the stereotypical Bay Area, romanticized narrative and all the 'education disruptors' seem to come out of the exact same circle. It's not surprising to me at all that Zuckerberg had to write the 100 million off, most professionals just come out of decent schools with a good social learning environment.
It's not that computer people are better, smarter, or more passionate than other professionals. It's just that the barrier to entry (in the 1st world) is just based on your interest level.
So with that availability combined with the rapid prototyping ability of breadboards I’m not surprised that plenty of electronics hobbyists could exist.
This is in contrast with something like chemistry, where going online and learning a different approach to solving problems might help you understand the material better but probably won't get you ahead in class.
I'm gonna be honest here, if we're talking about the tech industry, learning to deal with "pointless platform and environmental obstacles" without getting so frustrated you quit is probably the chief skill.
I know a lot of devs that don't have any idea what the stack or the heap are or why they're important. But being able to track down that one of your dependencies is listening to a magical environment variable that you stepped on and that's why everything is wonkey is an important skill that you have to have.
If anything I find most new tech employees were henpecked students from elite families being browbeat to study something lucrative.
What defines the Bay Area is the VC gold rush fever that took root here. But the VCs at this point want Stanford graduates.
When i was growing up (medium sized town early 2000s) i read all the computer books in my library. There was like 4, i remember one was a redhat for dummies, another was on vrml 1.0 (this was a bit outdated at the time), i dont remember the others. Sure there was some info on the internet, but it was few and far between. Random home pages by and large weren't even remotely on the level of a wikipedia article let alone a text book.
Now a days, if i want to learn about computer things, there are like a billion resources. Text based tutorials, youtube videos, almost anything you can imagine. And that is just the googlable ones. If i am willing to do something a tiny bit illegal, i can get basically any book ever published from libgen.
The available resources the modern person has is just staggering.
While there were certainly fewer books in the late 90s and early 00s, they were well put together and comprehensive, often reference-style works. You could learn an entire programming language from having access to a single book.