In Quebec we have a sort of college between high school and university where you are forced to take "bullshit classes" along with the stuff you chose to study. Mine included philosophy, Spanish, photography, canoeing, and a few others. At the time it felt like a diversion, but it was a welcome introduction to something other than computer science.

In my first year of university, a senior grabbed me by the shoulders and told me that I _have_ to try an internship or semester abroad. One thing led to another and I have just celebrated 10 years in Germany. It led to my current career, which is not at all what I studied.

To answer your question, I think that it requires a certain curiosity, and an appetite for experimentation. I feel like the system is teaching kids the opposite of that.

I wish cegep, or an interstitial school where you have a year or 2 to just take tons of unrelated courses, was more common. So much focus is put on universities as job training that they lose a part of what historically has long made them special --- learning for the sake or learning.