Sort of related, in my last year and a half of HS I started a commercial electrician assistant program which was supposed to be like an accelerated apprenticeship path. I kind of liked it, and it legitimately the best pay available to a 17 year old at the time, but it was the master electrician I worked with who convinced me to quit and go get an EE degree instead. I distinctly remember the conversation where he asked me how old I thought he was, and I guessed he was close to 60, nearing retirement. He was 43, and he'd fallen off a ladder a year earlier, which was why I was doing all work over 8' for him way fucking beyond what your typical HS assistant would normally be doing. "Go to college" he told me. "I chose this instead of Mechanical Engineering and now I can't do the job anymore, with 20 years to retirement."