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free advice - worth what you paid for it.
If you have been in school non-stop since kindergarten, stop now. I would not recommend going to grad school. Unless you have a burning desire or target in mind, you will be marking time. You might learn interesting things and meet interesting people, but I think you need a taste of the real world.
Do you speak any other languages? If not, learn them. In fact, if I were in your shoes I would to go China and teach english (while learning Mandarin). You won't get rich, but you'll learn the language and the culture, and broaden your horizons immensely.
My trajectory was a bit different. After HS I spent 4 years trying to be a rock star. When I'd finally had enough of everything, I went to college. At that point I knew the real world sucked, and I was motivated. Once I figured out my major (entered as a music major, then considered english, then physics, ended up in chemistry), I immersed myself in it while still playing music on the side. I then decided that I wanted to teach, pondered the prospect of teaching HS but really liked the college environment. But to teach at university level you need a phd...so for me grad school became the means to an end.
I had a blast in grad school, did a lot of things other than chemistry, but also got very excited by the research questions. Then I had another choice - teach at a small liberal arts college (my original plan) or go to a larger research university. The latter is more about research than teaching. And while I loved thinking about the problems, I hated being at the bench, and didn't like the prospect of spending the next 10 years doing that (3 years for postdoc, then 7 years until getting a research group fully going and getting tenure). I took a postdoc as that would give me flexibility, but about 6 months in I knew that I wanted to teach. So despite getting a 3 year fellowship from NIH I turned that down and left after about 1.5 years for a teaching position.
Of course then I realized that even at a liberal arts college you need to do research. And you have smaller budgets, less infrastructure, and by the time you train your undergrad students they graduate and leave. I also ran into academic politics and faculty nonsense. I don't believe in tenure, and wanted to change the world. I learned my lessons, got savvy, and eventually found out how to navigate the waters. During that time I got more and more into digital technology and eventually walked away from the faculty position and ended up in web development at another university. I wasn't in that position very long as I was way over trained for the position and had much bigger ideas. I had made the right connections though, and a position opened up running a research institute on campus and I took that. Five years there led me to where I am now, doing a little bit of everything running projects that create training systems. And I'm still playing music on the side.
If I were 22 though, I'd go overseas and teach english and learn Mandarin. They you'll have some serious opportunities.
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