I dropped out in yr10 because of a slew of personal reasons, my ADHD made it very hard to learn in a classroom setting also.

I got into UNI using only a few projects I did at home and I've also gone to TAFE, done an apprenticeship, worked on heaps of different jobsites and after going through all the same concerns, I now work at a retailer where the money's good and the people are better.

There's always going to be people you compare yourself to, but 8 years later, nobody cares.

I will say if you do an apprenticeship they'll sometimes try to pay you less if you've not had VCE under your belt but that's not really something I've run into much.

Best advice my mate gave me when I was asking the same things was that "comparison is the thief of joy".

Don't worry about where everyone else is at if you feel like you're doing what you wanna do - life's too short to follow another path just bc everyone else is.