A good education outside of the cockpit has a lot to offer and I think a good degree (science, business etc) is a good start in life. I would encourage anyone who is a pilot to invest in something else as a fallback as this is an unstable industry.
I work on the side as an engineer on various design projects, and I am getting lots of offers for work at the moment. The work is well paid and people are well looked after (as opposed to aviation industry!).
And it is not boring at all, no more boring than spending 10 hours at a time in LNAV and VNAV!