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I believe that some Cavern/Cave certs require AOW first. Ask your cave instructor to be.
instructors can override. I never actually got AOW....
Nitrox Diver-Rescue-Full Cave-Instructor where the only cards I had for quite a few years. Now there are a couple more cave specialty, but never got AOW. With NAUI we didn't need it for depth since the nitrox diver is good to 130ft, and skills were evaluated by an instructor. Card didn't matter. Granted that was 2010, but still.
I'm sure it's been said above, but haven't gotten through all the posts yet. AOW is 99% of the time a waste of time and money. It won't actually teach you any new/useful skills since @jtsfour said cave is the goal. If I were you, I'd just go find a good cave instructor now. Get them to run you through an intro to tech course, or GUE fundies, etc etc. which will actually teach you the skills you need to know and practice. From there you can go into the cave courses and save the weekend of wasted time/money in AOW.
Now, there are instructors who make AOW useful and you actually gain real skills from it, but none that you won't get out of an intro-to-tech type course anyway.
Based on your age, it then becomes finding a mentor to actually dive with who knows what he's doing. Find one, then dive your butt off until you feel comfortable. Nothing says you can't combine the itt with a cavern course so you can start practicing the skills in clear/warm water in anticipation of cave.