When I was at school Computer Programmer wasn't even an available career path, and we had no structured Programming course. I remember that we did write a programme to solve quadratic equations in BBC Basic as part of our Maths course.

Try as I might to get the "Careers advice software" to say Programmer the nearest I could get was Lab Technician. You would have thought that a piece of software written and tested by programmers would have at least included their own career choice!

I got into an entry level Deputy DBA job 13 years ago after learning how to use MS Access at my previous job. I have done software development and maintenance over the years, and you don't need a degree in Maths or Computer Science for it as was suggested at school, I did Chemistry. If you want to design microprocessors or write C compilers in assembler then I can see either of these being essential, let me know if I'm wrong.