scholarme-that’s a really good question regarding “survey the possibilities”. We put all three of our daughters into our local Art League programs, where they took dozens of 2-4 hour classes in art including drawing (drawing for kids, the drawing from life in the adult courses, perspective, architecture intro, still life), painting (for kids, then oil painting), sculpture ( at first for kids, then scupture from life using class in the adult classes, both nude figure and head portraits, bronze sculpture), cartooning, jewelry. By the time they were 16 or earlier, all three knew if they wanted to go into art, exactly which kind or if they wanted to follow a different path. Most big cities have some kind of art league, which is run independently of any school or university system. If they see the kid is serious, they wiill allow them to take the adult classes. My now artist was allowed into the bronze sculpture and clay figure sculpture classes when she was ten years old. She was also so determined to learn that she traveled to NYC every Sunday starting at age 15 to take a sculpture class form a certain teacher at their art student league. The 3AM Sunday bus was a regular trip for her for two years.
To answer your other question, yes drawing is to artists what scales and studies are to musicians, to a large extent. If one wants to draw well from life, one should do that daily to learn.