I took a year off after high school in the US to work part time and take welding and accounting courses at the local community college. Great experience that convinced me that I did actually want to go to university.
I'm pretty sure that if I had taken auto shop or welding in high school (it was still offered, but I was "college-bound" and steered away from anything in that wing of the building) or in a "gap year" I would have ended up doing something in that field. I love making stuff and repairing stuff. I also was interested in computers and programming them, I think there's a lot of overlap there in terms of motivations.