I got my first axolotl while in college, but the first time I heard of axolotls was sometime in high school. There was a youtuber (don't remember for sure which one; I've tried since to find the video, but none look right) who had many animals in their house, including an axolotl. My immediate thought was "Wow, so cute, but so weird!" I went online and did more research, and the more I discovered, the more fascinated I was! I decided that someday, I'd like to have one. But then I kind of forgot about them until my freshman year of college. There was a girl on my floor who I found out had three axolotls in her room! I had never thought of the possibility of having an axolotl while still in school and immediately started figuring out the logistics and doing my research. I didn't actually get my boy though until about two years later, and in the meantime did lots of research.
I still had to figure out how/where I was going to get one though, so I talked to the girl who already had some. It turned out her dad owned a pet store and knew various breeders, so she said she'd keep an ear out for me. She eventually found my boy and actually housed him for a time while I got my tank cycled. Then, I was able to welcome Cosmosis (Cosmo for short), a golden albino.
He's now three years old and GIGANTIC! His current length is about 13 inches. I had to upgrade his tank to a 40 gallon breeder tank and may even need to go bigger! Partly because of his size, I wish I had waited longer to get an axolotl. My school only allowed tanks of up to 10 gallons, which was fine for him while he was still a baby, but he quickly outgrew it. I was hoping that he would be on the smaller side of axolotl average and I could keep him in it for a bit longer, but clearly that didn't work
You live and you learn. As soon as I graduated, he was immediately upgraded to a 20G and then not too long later to the 40G. Now I start off all my axolotls in at least 20G. Cosmo now has two brothers and one undetermined sibling, but he will always be my big baby. He's dumb as a rock, but I love him