I went through a union electrician apprenticeship.
It promised more than it delivered, but it did make me over from a shopkeeper into an electrician.
If you can afford to,go with the schooling,get all the licensing,degrees and certification you can,and insist on hands on training along with theory.
Do this and you will probably have job offers before you even finish school.
In some places, union membership is worthwhile because they have a virtual monopoly in the marketplace.
This is good for gainful employment,not so good for startups that are backing the trends.
You can always apprentice later,in fact you might beagle to skip years of apprenticeship due to your schooling.
Every specialty you know will make you more valuable.
For example, every electrician apprentice in my graduating
class learned controls,fiber optics,and fire alarms,all in the classroom.
Those who learned these skills in the field, hands on,were able to parley that real knowledge into a careers worth of work.
I myself learned to
thread pipe,and pull, important skills but not rare or highly in demand skills.
School first, then a job,union or other wise, then your own shop,union or otherwise.
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