Grew up on a farm, we were too busy and poor for my Dad to every take the time to get into hunting so while I was shooting at 9 and always outdoors I didn't start hunting until 13 (couldn't deer hunt with a gun in MI until 14 anyways). Once I started there was not much else I did when seasons were open.

Finished high school, picked a decent but cheap in-state school my scholarships would cover. Stayed out of debt by working up to 3 part-time jobs despite doing 3 sports (including rifle team of course). Still hunted a lot as the school was pretty much wilderness all around.

Roofed a house by myself after graduation to buy a car (which I still drive), packed up everything with only a few hundred dollars to my name and drove off to start a PhD in cancer research. Forced to live in the city, but was 3 hours from my parents so hunted many weekends. Did that for 4 years, got married after 3 of them, decided for various reasons that staying to finish was a dumb idea and a ticket to misery. Left with a M.S., started an MBA at the same school and went into debt (and lots of it!) for the first time in my life though my wife had finished her M.S. and had a good job.

10 years of college....I amNEVER going to school again...

Finished the MBA and actively sought out a company/career that would allow me to raise my family like I wanted to. Moved to one of the few places in my industry you can do that (Indiana, working on cancer drugs), now I have 16 acres and while all my current hunting land is 90 minutes away I have a nice shooting range out the back door and within a couple years I'll have decent bird hunting there as well.