I unschooled K-2, was in a traditional school 3-5, then did a mix of unschooling and traditional homeschooling until high school (depending on the subject and year). I dropped out of a criminology program in my third year, ran unsuccessfully for public office, and have since been following a successful career as a programmer for 10 years.
I credit unschooling with some of the things I like most about myself, but also some of the things I like least. It's my good fortune/dumb luck that one area I fixated on turned out to be in demand and high-paying, because I am constitutionally incapable of giving any focus to subjects that don't interest me. I have a particular depth and breadth of knowledge, albeit one that doesn't always coincide with things that "everyone knows". I certainly am self-reliant and able to teach myself (particularly valuable as a programmer), but I feel none of the motivation that many respondents mentioned. I have mild diagnosed ADHD; whether it's caused by unschooling I can't say. It was also intensely lonely for me, though I'm not sure I fully understood it at the time.
My feeling is that I am a better person for the experience, and I wouldn't change it if I could. But I do have a sense that I rolled the dice and won. I'm not certain that I would make the same choice for my children.
Your conclusion that your unschooling worked out for you more by chance than design got me thinking more generally. While we certainly have some amount of agency in directing our own course in life, many of the things that happen to us that push us into a better or worse situation happen completely by chance.
I was traditionally schooled, but, like you, believe strongly that my current success is largely attributable to the luck of my enjoying programming to an immense degree, and falling into it a few years out of college (where I studied hardware because at the time I wanted to design microprocessors, something I wasn't all that good at and ended up not enjoying). Obviously our stories make for a sample size of two, but that suggests to me that any particular method of schooling doesn't matter, as long as there's an environment in childhood and adolescence that facilitates learning.
I wouldn't say it doesn't matter, just that there are many paths to the same destination. And yes, anyone who tells you that your decisions are the primary determinant in how your life goes is a liar. 1% inspiration, 9% persperation, 90% dumb luck.
I wonder how you would have fared in the normal system. We can't know which is why we need large numbers.
I went trought the normal school system and I also feel like I am pathologically unable to do anything I don't consider to be fun. I get away with it because I just barely made all the tests. But it caused me some stress, my bachelors, masters and PhD theses were finished over the weekend by skipping a lot of sleep. I do things in the end because the thought: "if others can do it, I surely should also be able to do it", motivates me to kick my own ass into action apparently. My brother is just as smart but never motivates himself in the end (near a deadline). In stead he drop the ball. He ended up an alcoholic and is now recovering, trying to find a way of life without stress. I feel I just escaped that by a small margin.
Next to school I did play a lot with computers but despite this fact I went into biology. It was fun and I'm good at memorizing books by stuffing them into my brain 1 night before a test so I did well.
Now, at 38 I managed to go from biology to data science to bioinformatics to software development. And I finally feel like I want to get to work, not because of deadlines but because I feel like I'm building something really cool.
I wonder how I would have done in your system. I don't care much for my titles, I saw many people blindly do what their professor told them and got PhDs without creativity. Sure you have to be baseline smart, but motivation trumps IQ imo (at least when IQ is above a certain minimum, which I recon is really not as high as you would think).
I almost hope my son makes it through school with minimal effort so that he has time to focus on fun things. Things that interest him naturally. I feel we lost trust in self motivation and build a pretty shitty system as an insurance against not being able to motivate oneself. But this system, at least for some, is very demotivating (my son included).
Minimal effort was a big part of why I struggled in university. I'm smart, and learned at an early age that I could get away with coasting and scrape decent grades - until university. Turns out working at something that doesn't come naturally is a very important life skill that I'd completely missed.
I credit unschooling with some of the things I like most about myself, but also some of the things I like least. It's my good fortune/dumb luck that one area I fixated on turned out to be in demand and high-paying, because I am constitutionally incapable of giving any focus to subjects that don't interest me. I have a particular depth and breadth of knowledge, albeit one that doesn't always coincide with things that "everyone knows". I certainly am self-reliant and able to teach myself (particularly valuable as a programmer), but I feel none of the motivation that many respondents mentioned. I have mild diagnosed ADHD; whether it's caused by unschooling I can't say. It was also intensely lonely for me, though I'm not sure I fully understood it at the time.
My feeling is that I am a better person for the experience, and I wouldn't change it if I could. But I do have a sense that I rolled the dice and won. I'm not certain that I would make the same choice for my children.