# How old were you when you left school and what did you do?



## Bretrick (Dec 13, 2021)

I left at age 15, worked in a Deli for 4 months before starting a Fitter/Machinist Apprenticeship.
Leading to being a Tradesman 4 years later.
Worked in an underground copper mine for 20 years


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## hollydolly (Dec 13, 2021)

Bretrick said:


> I left at age 15, worked in a Deli for 4 months before starting a Fitter/Machinist Apprenticeship.
> Leading to being a Tradesman 4 years later.
> Worked in an underground copper mine for 20 years


I also left at 15.. made to leave to go and earn money. First real job after leaving school was as an officer junior in a Punch card typing pool


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## Murrmurr (Dec 13, 2021)

I graduated high school a few months early by taking what they used to call a Graduation Challenge Test. You could take that test when you'd earned all your required credits and didn't mind missing your formal graduation ceremony. I got married a few months later. I'd been working at my uncle's tailor shop for almost 3 years at that point, so I had money, but soon after we married, my wife and I moved some distance away. But I had no trouble finding work, and I also started college.


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## Pappy (Dec 13, 2021)

Age 17, worked for a month or two, went in the Army and got married. A very busy time for me.


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## Irwin (Dec 13, 2021)

I graduated high school in 1975 at the age of 17. During the next few years, I jumped around from job to job. I did some construction work, worked in factories, I worked at a 7-11 for a while... There wasn't much going on in the small town where I lived and it was tough to find anything decent.

At the age of 20, I moved down to Houston with a friend of mine. I'd never been there but another friend had gone down there and did pretty well for himself working as a welder, but he came back after a few months. He had family to come back to and a nice house, so it was just an adventure for him. I was living on my own and just barely scraping by. There were a few times when I had no money even for a loaf of bread, and went to bed hungry. It seemed to me that there was no way it could be any worse than what I was going through at the time, working in a factory earning just above minimum wage, driving a piece of crap car that had the quarter panels rusted out and leaked oil like a sieve, and living in an old house that was converted into apartments. I think my rent was like $140 a month. It was a slum.

So we went to Houston and stayed at a YMCA. During the day, we went out and searched for work. I found a job in an equipment rental yard. I was hired to do maintenance on the machinery but took an interest in helping out with repairs, so eventually, under the tutelage of the other mechanics, I became a mechanic. I did that kind of work until I was 28 at which time I moved to Colorado and decided to go to college.

End of Chapter 2


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## mrstime (Dec 13, 2021)

Graduated at 17 in 1957, got married immediately, still married to the same fellow. Still glad I got him!


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## horseless carriage (Dec 13, 2021)

Fourteen was the age that I left school, but that is only a technicality. Just short of my fifteenth birthday I was knocked down on a pedestrian crossing, it shattered my right leg, causing me to recuperate in a specialist hospital for nigh on three years. 

The deputy head teacher would bring my school work, he was a bright fellow, years later I learned that he would spend time studying every subject that he could answer my questions, I owe much to him, in fact, without his help I would never have made it into college.


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## Ruth n Jersey (Dec 13, 2021)

Graduated from high school and the next fall worked my way through nursing school. Worked for 10 years in that field until I got married.


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## Mrs. Robinson (Dec 13, 2021)

Graduated at 17,had already been married for 6 months and was 5 months pregnant. Worked in a pharmacy but stopped before baby was born. Didn`t work outside the home again for ten years and that was to work in our auto repair business.


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## Tish (Dec 13, 2021)

I was 17 had a year to travel the world then into University.


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## MickaC (Dec 13, 2021)

Quit school at 16......got a full time job.
Was told there wasn't any money for any college after grade 12.....so i quit school.
Don't take me the wrong way and i'm not boasting.....wrote very few exams.....was exempted from most of them.....really bored at school.
So.....quit the boredom.


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## Nathan (Dec 13, 2021)

Bretrick said:


> How old were you when you left school and what did you do?


Dropped out after 11th grade, joined the Army at 17. Got my GED in Basic Training, served my enlistment then got out after I got back from Vietnam.  
Did 50 years worth of stuff and now here I am.


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## Pappy (Dec 13, 2021)

mrstime said:


> Graduated at 17 in 1957, got married immediately, still married to the same fellow. Still glad I got him!


64 years for you and I got married in 1956, 65 years this month. A big congratulations to us both..


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## Chet (Dec 13, 2021)

After graduating high school, I tried college for one year and got the boot. It seems like you had to attend classes or something instead of shooting pool at the billiard hall. Worked a few crappy jobs then joined the Air Force. Got out with my head screwed on relatively straight. Got an Associates in electronics and worked, worked and worked and now I’m done.


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## bowmore (Dec 13, 2021)

Graduated college at 20, and headed for the West Coast. After about a year, I got a job as a Field Engineer overseas. I worked in Japan,. Korea, North slope of Alaska and Scotland.


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## Alligatorob (Dec 13, 2021)

I left a number of times at ages:

17, worked for a while and went back
21, worked for a while and went back
25, worked for a while and went back
30, for the last time, then started real life!


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## peppermint (Dec 13, 2021)

I graduated high school....    Mom made me get a job.....I did.....A very nice job.....I loved typing.....So I found a ware house in our town.
A lovely lady, a little older then me...I was a fast typist .....It was just her and me in the office.....I worked there for a couple of years....
I then got married and stayed home with my 2 kids....Hubby worked in New York City....We sent our two kids to college and I decided
to work in a High School in the front office....I stayed there for 25 years.....Both kids are married now ....Both have 2 kids each.....
Me and hubby are still together....We are both in our seventies...   Jeez.........


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## dobielvr (Dec 13, 2021)

I left home at 18 or 19 with my then boyfriend, and we ran off to Las Vegas and got married.  Against my parents wishes.  My sister told me that my Dad cried as I was leaving.

My husband was a craps dealer, and I had a fake ID to gamble.  We had fun.  Met a lot of interesting people...

Came home after a couple of years and that's when things happened..

Read my book 'Dazed and Confused'  ................jk


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## Lewkat (Dec 13, 2021)

Finished Grad School at age 26, FINALLY!


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## hollydolly (Dec 14, 2021)

Pappy said:


> 64 years for you and I got married in 1956, 65 years this month. A big congratulations to us both..


you got married around the same time as my parents... now does that make you feel old ?


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## Warrigal (Dec 14, 2021)

Finished 5 years of High School at 16 and won a scholarship to continue studying at Sydney University.
I was too young and managed to fail my second year disastrously, so I went to Teachers College for one year and became a science/maths teacher at 20 years of age. Married the same year and had a baby.

Everything came at me before I was ready but I stuck it out and made the best of it all. No major regrets.


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## Pappy (Dec 14, 2021)

hollydolly said:


> you got married around the same time as my parents... now does that make you feel old ?


I’ve got a son older than you Holly, or so I’m guessing. He’s 63 and retired in the state of Washington. Now that makes me feel old..


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## ronaldj (Dec 14, 2021)

18 for high school, went to big school, didn't finish was 20 that summer drafted. first class education.
well got married in June and drafted in July ....


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## Aunt Bea (Dec 14, 2021)

After high school, I earned a two-year diploma from a private business school and started working as an accounting clerk for $7,500.00/year.


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## Capt Lightning (Dec 14, 2021)

Left secondary school at 17 and went to university to study electrical & electronic engineering.  Dismayed to find that this was mainly maths.
After that, I continued to work in the Uni's Atomic & Molecular Physics department, designing and building test rigs for the Phd research programmes.  Married at 22 and got a job with IBM as a final test engineer on the 3033 mainframes and then into software development when the manufacturing was moved to France..


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## Geezer Garage (Dec 14, 2021)

Graduated in 69' at 18, was soon off on an all expenses paid vacation to beautiful Southeast Asia. The only lottery I've ever won. Mike


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## hollydolly (Dec 14, 2021)

Pappy said:


> I’ve got a son older than you Holly, or so I’m guessing. He’s 63 and retired in the state of Washington. Now that makes me feel old..


lol..I wish he _was_ older than me... but nope..I'm 66....


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## Gary O' (Dec 14, 2021)

How old were you when you left school and what did you do?​S'pose you had to actually be there in order to leave....


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## P A Tracy (Dec 14, 2021)

Left at 16 to be a Mom. GED at 19 if I remember correctly.


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## Pappy (Dec 14, 2021)

hollydolly said:


> lol..I wish he _was_ older than me... but nope..I'm 66....


Oops…missed it by that much..


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## SmoothSeas (Dec 14, 2021)

quit college at 22 to join the Merchant Marines.  I wanted to see the world and I did get to see some of it.

in hindsight, I should have continued my education and pursued that career path...


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## Verisure (Dec 18, 2021)

Bretrick said:


> How old were you when you left school and what did you do?​


18 and went straight into the Army.


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