Good luck to your friend. He can get started now and hopefully, his passion (if indeed he has it ) will stick. I will pass on a bit of advice from the smartest man I have ever met, my Dad. In my professional career, before I retired, I commonly dealt with Law professors, physicians, engineers, other attorneys, judges etc. But my Dad, who grew up barefoot picking cotton in Dust Bowl Oklahoma, and then three years of a running gun battle in the South Pacific during WWII was the smartest of them all. Given his background, he was frugal, to put it mildly. He was an electrician and always bought the finest tools,, any of which I still have. He was the same way with sporting goods. Dad always said to me and my brother, "Boys, you buy a good tool, you pay or it once. You buy a cheap one, you pay for it every damn time you use it." He didn't make up the phrase, its been around for years, but the wisdom was passed down.