Picking trade school when everyone expects college takes a spine. Good electricians don’t need applause.

Going against an expectation everybody around you shares is harder than choosing between two neutral options, because you are not only picking, you are explaining yourself for a year. The path gets treated as a statement rather than a decision. What survives all that is usually the choice somebody actually wanted, not the one that was easiest to announce.

Get concrete before you defend anything. What the training costs, what the work is like day to day, who you can talk to who does it now. A well researched answer ends most of the arguments by itself.