I went to college, straight out of high school too. I wasn't ready either. After dropping out and enlisting in the navy, I trained as an electronics technician. When I got out 4 years later, I went to a community college and got an AA degree in electronice technology I worked a few years as a TV broadcast engineer (FCC 1st class license) I settled on my final career, an industrial Instrument Technician, specializing in pollution control syatems. That is a great field to be in. However, I would reccomend electrician. Most industries ane going to Instrumentation/Electrical instead of seperate departments. The instrumentation is much easier to learn on site than Electrical. I did because even though I had a background in electronics, I had to learn pneumatics and more about computer control systems. Of course another thing with electrician instead of Instrumentation, is that jobs in Instrumentation outside of industry are few and far between. An electrician can find work most anywhere.