That sounds about right. For me, I fell into a weird scenario where I was still in school right during the peak of the late 90's "dot com bubble" era, when anybody could get a job as a programmer if they could turn a computer on. So I quit school and went to work. And after keeping that first job 4 and a half years, I never had any trouble with a job after that, even without having a bachelor's degree.

Strangely though, I've accumulated 3 associate degrees (general education, computer programming, and high performance computing) over the years as well. Somehow, with all that, nobody ever mentions that I never finished my bachelors degree.

Not sure if it's possible to replicate that career path these days or not. I may just be the product of a specific era of history.