When I was your age in the mid-1990s, I was dead certain that I wanted to "work with computers". I loved them: so versatile, and able to do the most amazing things! I took it upon myself to learn all that I could before heading off to college - programming, operating systems, and what have you.
Well, I'm 24 now, and I'm still "in college"; I changed my degree a couple times, dropped out twice, and will finally be graduating with an Information Technology degree in March. To put it simply: I still don't know "what I want to do". Part of me would like to gun smith. Part of me would like to do IT work, too - but it's not the glamourous thing I once thought it was, at 15. This is partially due to the fact that I simply didn't know what the field really entailed - now I do, as I've had some professional experience as well as educational experience. Educational experience alone isn't going to give you a feel for the job.
It's just annecdotal, but hopefully my story is useful. Take from it what you will.
What I recommend: see if you can't convince the store owner/gunsmith to let you hang around and watch what he is doing. Offer to be an 'apprentice'; that is, ask him if you can hang around, clean up shop, and maybe prep things and help him keep organized. This will be to both your benefit: he'll get free 'grunt' labor, you will get an education and an appreciation for the less pleasant parts of the job (which is necessary for any field, I think).
For instance, people get into criminal justice think they're going to be heroes or do exciting CSI-style forensics and people get into nursing because they think they'll be tending to the sick and/or helpless - reality is MUCH different.
Also, I have found that something of interest is quickly made sour by day-in and day-out repetition, or focusing your time and efforts on a part of the field which is infuriatingly frustrating or simply of little interest. For instance, I love system administration and security work, and enjoy system design, some programming (C++, perl, and php mostly) - but other things (Visual Basic, COBOL, coding on the same project day-in and day-out) drive me absolutely batty and make it difficult for me to enjoy my day.
Find out what you are good at; find out what irritates you. Don't get too frustrated when you find that you can't do something, or that you don't like something as much as you think you would: every bit of experience helps, and finding out what you dislike is often more helpful than finding out what you do not like. Always have a plan - but realize that it might not necessarily get completed to execution.
As for gunsmithing itself, my observation has been that the better gunsmiths tend to not work out of a shop (working on everything) but work part-time on smithing, and only on specific things that they're both good at and enjoy (for instance, building custom hunting rifles, custom 1911s, building AK kits on the cheap, trigger jobs, 'sporterizing' milsurps, etc.). They get new business by word of mouth.
If I were to do things over again? I'd try and get into organic agriculture, I think. (Which is what my wife and I are aiming for in our '5 year plan'.)
Well, I'm 24 now, and I'm still "in college"; I changed my degree a couple times, dropped out twice, and will finally be graduating with an Information Technology degree in March. To put it simply: I still don't know "what I want to do". Part of me would like to gun smith. Part of me would like to do IT work, too - but it's not the glamourous thing I once thought it was, at 15. This is partially due to the fact that I simply didn't know what the field really entailed - now I do, as I've had some professional experience as well as educational experience. Educational experience alone isn't going to give you a feel for the job.
It's just annecdotal, but hopefully my story is useful. Take from it what you will.
What I recommend: see if you can't convince the store owner/gunsmith to let you hang around and watch what he is doing. Offer to be an 'apprentice'; that is, ask him if you can hang around, clean up shop, and maybe prep things and help him keep organized. This will be to both your benefit: he'll get free 'grunt' labor, you will get an education and an appreciation for the less pleasant parts of the job (which is necessary for any field, I think).
For instance, people get into criminal justice think they're going to be heroes or do exciting CSI-style forensics and people get into nursing because they think they'll be tending to the sick and/or helpless - reality is MUCH different.
Also, I have found that something of interest is quickly made sour by day-in and day-out repetition, or focusing your time and efforts on a part of the field which is infuriatingly frustrating or simply of little interest. For instance, I love system administration and security work, and enjoy system design, some programming (C++, perl, and php mostly) - but other things (Visual Basic, COBOL, coding on the same project day-in and day-out) drive me absolutely batty and make it difficult for me to enjoy my day.
Find out what you are good at; find out what irritates you. Don't get too frustrated when you find that you can't do something, or that you don't like something as much as you think you would: every bit of experience helps, and finding out what you dislike is often more helpful than finding out what you do not like. Always have a plan - but realize that it might not necessarily get completed to execution.
As for gunsmithing itself, my observation has been that the better gunsmiths tend to not work out of a shop (working on everything) but work part-time on smithing, and only on specific things that they're both good at and enjoy (for instance, building custom hunting rifles, custom 1911s, building AK kits on the cheap, trigger jobs, 'sporterizing' milsurps, etc.). They get new business by word of mouth.
If I were to do things over again? I'd try and get into organic agriculture, I think. (Which is what my wife and I are aiming for in our '5 year plan'.)
