I wish I knew earlier in life, like when I started college, that I didn't want to be a chemist and that career in IT was much better suited for me. You would think I would have realized I was studying the wrong subject when none of my classes interested me and I got marginal grade in all except those that were heavily math-based because they were intuitively easy. As it was, I spent 6 and a half years earning a BS and MA in biochemistry only to declare upon completion of my graduate degree that I never wanted to set foot in a chemistry lab again. I learned about databases and a little SQL at my first job doing data management for a chemical distributor, which allowed me to get my current position since no one here knew any SQL. Now, my title is DBA, but I'm pretty much a business intelligence developer, having no idea how to maintain my server other than what I've read on this forum. I'm good at what I do, but I'm limited by my lack of education. I work for a non-profit, so training money is non-existent, and I don't have the funds of my own to get proper training (b/c I work for a non-profit). So, I try to learn from books, but it's hard to turn reading into marketable skills when I have no projects to work on and no one to criticque my work. Proper education would have put me on the right track for a career I control, rather than one that controls me.