What was your route?
I started off with a PPL with an aim of having a head start and something interesting when going into the Forces. That fell through, so took on work to pay for flight training the modular way.
No uni, just working and throwing the money at the courses, then taking a loan to concentrate full time on the ATPL theories and CPL/IR. Got lucky and landed my first interview, flying DH8 but could have been on a jet type (CRJ or Fokker were also in the fleet) as long as it has wings...