If you want to be a professional pilot, plan on getting your CFI certificate no matter what. I know a lot of pilots that got hired with a wet certificate, sat on the bottom on a seniority list for a year and only flew about 100 hours and then got furloughed. Now they have 350 hours and they are basically forced to go get their CFI to even meet the minimums for when the hiring starts again. Even if you have a genious plan to avoid flight instructing, get in anyways. I am not one of those that will paint a rosy picture about how great it is, you may not like it. But, give it your 100% if you do end up instructing and it will pay off later on.

There are so many options to get good training. If you want to stay local, explore all of them in your area. Look at a map and find all the local airports and check out all your FBOs. Look into all community colleges and universities. The advantages to a university or college is the financial aid options are better but the cost is more. I believe that it doesn't matter where you go, but who teaches you. There are some great instructors out there, and a lot of lazy, crappy ones that are just building time for the next flying job. Don't be one of those. You never know who will be at your company when you apply, I have had many students pass me up and gave me references.

I don't want to discourage you but it is also very competitive to become an ATC. I personally would not be happy sitting in a dark room and watching others fly. However, there are a lot of advantages to their job like job security and retirement. Everyday, their job is much more stressful and demanding. But when there is an emergency, they are sititing on the ground while the pilot is in the air with a broken airplane.