JazzO, let me add my very best wishes also. From what I have learned of you, your wide and varied interests, your Scout career which is a wonderful preparation for a young man, your ability to bring humor and careful analysis at the same time to a question, all make me confident that you will benefit greatly from college and join the ranks of truly educated people.

I hesitate to give advice, but I can't resist, not having received the benefit I should have from my own university experience and degree, entirely through my own fault, so:
1. Go for, and insist upon, an education, not just vocational training.
2. Never be satisfied with secondhand information from textbooks, professors' lectures, or other secondary sources when it is possible to go to the original sources, even if this means you have to learn some Latin or German or whatever is needed to access those sources.
3. Take one course each year that has nothing to do with your major or overall plan, just for the fun of it and because it promises to be interesting.

With affectionate wishes and hoping we won't lose slght of you.