Well, my still living parents grew up in the segregated South in the 60s. There was no “idealism” about why my mom and her 3 sisters went to college and her brother went to trade school. They knew that college was the only way out, their parents were already struggling and they had no choice but to go to a “Black” college (now HBCU) because they were not allowed to go anywhere else.

On the other hand, I grew up as an only child with my mom a teacher and my dad a factory worker. While I knew I wasn’t going to be homeless or hungry or put undue burden on my parents, college was solely a means (dual degree in computer science and mathematics) to be employable even though by the time I went to college I had already been programming in 65C02 assembly and some BASIC for six years and was learning 68K assembly on my Mac my freshman year.

But knowing C and how to bit twiddle definitely helped me get a job straight out of college - a week after I graduated.