Wow, who knew avbug was so anti-education? I notice that with a lot of the older pilot types. I wonder why that is?
What might make you suppose I'm "older?" What might make you suppose I am anti-education. I am not. I said nothing of the sort. Equating a degree with education, or learning for that matter, is a false association.
Example: If I've got 1000 total and 200 multi along with a master's degree, and another applicant has 1000 total and 200 multi with just a Bachelor's degree, will the Master's make a difference in hiring decision?
That was good or a chuckle. Neither applicant is more than barely qualified to open the aircraft door, let alone be competitive in any way. In other words, the piloting qualifications as totals go, is unimpressive. Adding an entirely irrelevant piloting qualification does not make the pilot more impressive. An inexperienced pilot is still an inexperienced pilot. See the former examples. You're not being hired, especially at that early stage in the game, for your outstanding diction, pedigogal anthologies, brightspark philosophies, papers and theses, or your degree.
"Wow, sir. You have no flying experience and no great qualifications but the bare minimum...but you have a masters degree. That does it, you're hired, and here's double the salary while you're at it." What's the difference between a fast food worker who has a high school diploma and one who has a masters degree? The one with the high school diploma is probably managng the one with the master's degree because he or she has been in the work force longer. Equate what you like with fast food...but the fast food worker is probably earning more than the 1,000 hour pilot with 200 hours of multi engine time. Degree, or not.
I never told you not to get a degree. I am not "anti-education." However, flying an airplane is not rocket science, and most employers know this. Most employers are intelligent enough that they hire on the basis of qualification, experience, ability, and suitability for the assignment...not necessarily for the letters next to the applicant's name.
I did have a prospective employer years ago, as I sat in my uneducated ignorant state across the interview desk, tell me that my lack of a degree then would prevent me from having meaningful conversations with his clients...many of whom were "professionals." Such shortsightedness was indeed idiotic, and while you will find the rare individual like this in the work place...you won't find so many. Ironically, that individual had obtained his flight experience without a degree, having obtained one later in life, and quickly turned to look down his nose at the masses.
Of course it has nothing to do with improving one's flying skills. that goes without saying. Why does everyone equate this with flying.
Oooh, this one's a toughie. Perhaps because the thread regards a poster who asked if holding a master's degree will aid him in obtaining favor in seeking employment as a pilot, when the primary consideration in hiring a pilot isn't his sheepskin, but his ability to fly the airplane. D'ja think?
I'm more concerned with the hiring decisions going on, not stick-and-rudder capability.
Therein lies the rub...you shoudl be more concerned with the flying, and leave the hiring decisions to those who do the hiring. There's far more to flying than stick and rudder capability.
(maybe it has something to do with living in the "Big Apple").
Please, no apologies are necessary. I won't hold that against you, necessarily.
I guess college graduates are a bunch of lazy guys without productivity on their mind.
No, not necessarily. Not if you consider beer and sex productivity. Also not necessarily accolades that cry out a candidate as the better pilot. What's the most common phrase heard from a college graduate today?
"Would you like fries with that, sir?"
A degree provides so much more in making a person more complete.
"Very impressive, sir. Eight thousand hours of some of the most demanding flying known to man. Three saves, and would you look at that? The congressional medal of honor! Your hair is so perfect, and your teeth so white, and I see here that you self-sponsored through the National Test Pilot School. And built your own triplane. And biplane. And taugh homeless kids to fly in your spare time and on your own dime, after becoming self-made by inventing the musical panty-liner. Every certificate and rating known to man and...now THAT is something. They even invented a rating just for you. You're definitely for us...no, wait a minute. You don't have a master's degree. Good lord, man! You come here to us and waste our time, an incomplete applicant! You go get yourself an education before returning back here. What do you think we are? We are educated people sir, and I will not have you dragging down my complete associates, clients, and employees with your incomplete selflessness! To think that you might have contaminated us with your filthy lack of completion! Look at yourself, man! You're missing an arm! How can you be master of your own domain without that arm? Go complete yourself, and don't show your face around here again, without a master's degree and a complete self! Then, when you've made something of yourself, we'll deign to consider you for a position in our Cessna 310. Be gone!"
So close, yet so far away.
It has more to do with being more of a human than a better pilot.
Aah agm naht än aanimawl! Aah agm ahn heuwmahn beeeing! Seee? Aaah hahve ah mahsturs degrie!
You're quite right, of course. Those lacking a master's degree are lesser humans than those having a masters degree. What an utterly ignorant and stupid thing to say...which proves that holding the degree has nothing to do with education, intelligence, or even wisdom...some of the traits that do go to enhancement of one's character. You really believe you're somehow more of a human because you have a degree? And you believe yourself to be learned???
Pardon me while I pop another antacid tablet and choke down some water while I laugh.
This my friend, is caused more by nurture and their life-long oversocialization by society, which is also quite varied from person to person.
Just curious how you would have constructed that sentence structure if you didn't have that fancy college education.
I'm sure you start your day off with a box of Wheaties - The Breakfast of Champions, such as yourself.
Did your professors not impress upon you the impropriety of speculation in your quest to be a better human than the next guy? I don't eat breakfast, or wheaties. I've never actually been a champion, but some of the people on the box tops scare me. If only better humans have master's derees then why aren't masters graduates the prime candidates for the wheaties boxes? Hmmm?
While it's true any moron can attain a degree with minimal effort,
Settled, and done!
I WILL make the mistake of equating education to learning, simply because education is very close a synonym for learning.
You equate wrongly. Learning, by definition is measured by a change in behavior. Education does not imply, nor assure, a change in behavior. Further, the definition itself is wrong, as one may most certainly learn without changing one's behavior..thus making the act of learning unquantifiable, and therefore unrecognizable, and therefore negating the practice of awarding learning by the issuance of a degree for that which one cannot necessarily divine.
Some of histories brightest individuals lacked a degree. Of course, the tinman was nothing until he had his degree. Look how it turned out for him! Perhaps your're onto something after all.
Your intelligence or I.Q. is set at birth and can only get lower throughout life (if you let it).
Rubbish.
An education cannot be taken away from you.
Wrong again. Through misuse or neglect any training, insight, learning, adapive behavior, ingrained habits or patterns of design may be altered, dimmed, or lost...an education most certainly can be taken away by any number of methods...though neglect is perhaps chief among them.
See a pilot without recurrent come back two years later and try to perform at anywhere near the same level...education fades, rusts, perishes. It can be taken away, it can be lost, and a person can be broken. I've seen it happen.
None of us is ever more than a step away from the gutter, and there, most anything is possible...including re-education.
