That's something I've benefited from. I taught myself how to program when I was 14-15 by reading books and playing with basic graphics processing stuff to make games. None of my games were ever any good or impressive, but it led to me learning how to do web and network programming for fun, and led to me learning how to build stuff.
This has been really good for me, since I don't have a degree, but I still can typically get through a whiteboard interview in most jobs that I apply for (though occasionally I'll get a problem that trips me up). School is certainly useful, but it should be used in addition to personal projects, not a substitute for them.
This has been really good for me, since I don't have a degree, but I still can typically get through a whiteboard interview in most jobs that I apply for (though occasionally I'll get a problem that trips me up). School is certainly useful, but it should be used in addition to personal projects, not a substitute for them.