Aspiring Pastry Chef

I am the general manager at a gelato and pastry shop in East Tennessee, and so primarily I do manager/admin duties and only occasionally help out our main pastry chef. I have been doing this for 4 months, and before this, I was a front of house manager at a sports bar, so my experience is very low in this field. However, I had the amazing opportunity to go to a pastry class ran by a famous pastry chef and chocolatier, and it made me realize I definitely want to pursue pastry and desserts as a career, and so my question is what steps should I take to work on it? Many of the other participants of the class who were people ranging in experience from 5-40 years of experience in this field and most said to not go to school, but rather just find an apprenticeship or internship and gain my experience that way. So my question is what route should I take? Is school necessary? Should I just move to a big city that has a lot of competition for pastries and find a chef to apprentice under? Any advice/help is appreciated, thanks!