> They have very little interest in what you might become because of one.

Love the spirit of the post.

As a high school dropout, with a GED, I’ve spent my entire adult life, looking up noses. I chose a career jammed to bursting, with sheepskins, because I really enjoy doing tech. Not because I wanted to make money, or because I wanted to be a big shot.

My first ever program, was in the 1970s, some time. It was a Heathkit programmable calculator. My first ever ”serious” program, was Machine Code, typed into a 6800-based STD card, nailed to a piece of wood, with a hex keypad, and an 8-digit LED display. My first personal computer, was a VIC-20, with 3KB of RAM. My first Apple computer was a Mac Plus, with 4MB of RAM, and an external 20MB SCSI hard drive.

Learning on limited resources helps us to become frugal and efficient. It also helps us to become tough as hell. Some of the best engineers I ever worked with, had rough backgrounds.

These days, I use a pretty maxed-out Mini, and an LG ultrawide screen. I’m spoiled.