Well I had a lot of help from my father with the soldering and so on and he was very good at math and was fascinated with computers and so I was fortunate enough to have a bunch of exposure going all the way back to high school - this was in the 1960s.
Never follow somebody else's path it doesn't work the same way twice for anyone... the path follows you and rolls up behind you as you walk forcing the next person to find their own way.