Craviatormike
Good luck with whatever decisions you make in your career
My first advice would be to not spend too much time on Pprune, it brings out negatively quite easily
There is no one guaranteed path to ensure a flying career, and you'll be told many conflicting pieces of advice along the way
My advice? Wait a couple of years out of high school before starting full time training. Employers would probably prefer a bit of real world experience and post high school maturity. Maybe get a FIFO or labouring job that pays well and SAVE the money. Maybe study theoretical exams in between. You'll find your career options and bank balance will look better rather than having $10'000's of dollars of debt when trying to find your first job.
avoid this pseudo career...
the best ?
Become engineer, make cash and fly for fun. (you'll have valuable skills).
A pilot is a pilot...the day you want to change career, you'll be stucked. (flying ILS do not make you good in any other field.)
Learn sciences, learn languages, learn management and accounting, then the world will be your playground.
After all of this, you can figure out if you want to be an airline pilot or not.
But the must is, have a back up career.
Pilot is becoming a season activity under zero contract hours.
You have been warned now.
Good luck in your choice.
You can google every profession for "Don't become a doctor, don't become a lawyer....." and you'll find predictions of gloom.
At the end of the day, the average salary for an airline pilot in Australia is $25000 per year higher than a civil or mechanical engineer, scientist or accountant. A more broadly defined "commercial pilot" earns more on average than an aerospace engineer.
Airline Pilot, Copilot, or Flight Engineer Salary (Australia)
And yes it is definitely a career that can take you around the world, and be at work less than the average person, and for the most part not take their work home with them. How many professionals these days are answering phones/doing paperwork on their "days off"?