Comment by genedangelo

I actually was only 16, but turned 17 right after I started. I had finished all the math and science courses in my high school in Mississippi and I had a lot of extra time in my senior year. As a junior, I scored the highest in the U.S. on an engineering aptitude test and got a write-up in the local paper. Mitchell Engineering was trying to get into computers but didn't know how to find people who could program. When they heard about me, they approached me with the idea of becoming a programmer. At the time, I had no idea what a programmer was, but they hired me and trained me on the job.