without the arrogance of youth the world would probably not make much progress!
Aint that the truth, would many of us have set out upon our chosen careers with the enormous work that it took to succeed in them, and slender chances of success at many junctures, if we'd really understood that when we started?
Also, I think that here in Britain at-least, awareness of the military and what it has to offer a young man or woman at the start of their working life is probably at an all-time low.
I'm not going to try and answer the original question, for the simple reason that my own career path has been extremely non-standard and hasn't prepared me to answer either very well. But, may I suggest that in this current time of poor public awareness of the military, probably highly under-resourced school careers departments, and let us assume a school leaver with considerable enthusiasm but no personal contacts in either military or civil flying.
In that context, I'd venture that this is a fair question that deserves an honest, non-patronising answer.
G