Tom,
At your age and your obvious brains and ability to study to a high standard, assuming you are medically fit, your best choice seems clear to me. Complete a good uni degree, bad ones are too common. Get some work experience in that profession to the point where you are attractive to employers in the future. JOIN the military! You get paid, the best instruction because you get more of it and a bigger variety, if you like it, stay in, if you don't you will be much more attractive to companies than your civilian counterpart who has probably paid for 100 hours flying per year without getting command time on big aircraft. Don't spend 25 years in the military if you want to be in airlines as by that time you might be too brainwashed!
Remember any pilot can lose his license medically any time, so your fall back career is important, just like sports stars.
As for killing or being killed, it happens to civilian pilots too, being killed that is! You don't have to choose to be a fighter pilot all your life
I did 5 years in the military, 1500 hours, twins, instrument time, etc and jobs have always been easy to get, even in the hard times.
