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I'm Back, no college degree required

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pilotyip

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 26, 2001
Posts
13,629
The doc says the cuts on my wrists have healed enought that I can start typing again. (only kidding)
Let me give you the background on the college degree thing. I do not judge a man by his degree, where he lives, or what he does for a living. I judge a man on the content of his character. I find the college degrees only crowd here, a bit arrogant, a smacking of if you do not have a degree you are not as good as me. I know too many people who are successful and fine men who do not have a degrees, I know many people with degrees who will never make any impact upon anything. I know too many pilots without degrees who I consider some of the most successful people I know I admire them and the lives they have built. So I bait, about the non-importance of the college degree in this business. I think this sets off the college degree only crowd because it distorts their view of what they have done. It has nothing to do with flying an airplane. Secondarily my pilot heroes did not have college degrees and they performed feats that would test the metal of anyone. They flew in WWII, George Bush I in the Pacific, the 10,000’s of B-17 and B-24 pilots in Europe, and the C-46 pilots over the hump in China. I meet these guys on the air show circuit, they come to see the C-47 and B-17, and I ask them about their adventures during the war. I am in awe of what they did. How can anyone say these guys without degrees were not as good as today’s degreed pilots?
 
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Ok, I agree wit what you said, but is there a question in there or are you just stating what most of us believe?:confused:
 
...

Most of the time the knowledge that accompanies a degree (undergrad) is nominal. You could learn the same thing from a few hours of watching history and science channel.

But a degree opens doors. Your hero's lived during a time when the locks on the doors required less keys. I have flown in some of the meanest crap you'd ever what to fly in. Single pilot 135 in the midwest, middle of the night, ice, snow, 50,000' thunderstorms. At the time I had no degree. I was at the top of my game. Now some years later, I am an airline Captain and I dont feel like half the pilot I used to be back then.

Cheers.

X
 
See http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/education/phct41.html

Between 1940 and 1950 about 30% of the us population had a high school degree. Thus with no college and just a diploma you were in the upper 30 percentile of the country; with respect to education. Having a college degree would have put you in the top 5%.

Today (well 2000 is the last year shown) more than 80% of the country has a high school diploma while about 24% has a college degree.

Thus.... Having a college degree today would put you in about the same statistical spot as a high school diploma when those good old WWII pilots were flying around. Guess how many of them had no high school diploma?

Disdain for education is ignorant. Is that sentence superfluously redundant?

Not everyone that has a college degree is smart and there are people with no college degree that are smarter than average. Every person with a college degree can start and complete a college program. That does say something.

Maybe you are rite and we dont need none of that thar fancy book learnin. The good lord and my momma taought me all I need to know.
 
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Using the census figures provided above, for males aged 25-29 the HS diploma rate raises to 50.6% by 1950. It becomes 70% by 1970, when airlines were hiring ab-inito w/o a degree. Since that's the pool pilotyip is talking about, I think you're overstating the case. Either piloting aircraft became easier in the interim, or perhaps professional flying requires developed judgement and a skill set that does not correlate well with academic learning. It might be interesting to drill the statistics more deeply..

The 25yr and older figures which you reference are driven low by a large portion of the older people not having HS diplomas-- and heck, both Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers had 8th grade educations.

Disdain for education is ignorant. Is that senence superfluously redundant?

No-- 1 verb, 1 noun, and 1 adjective... how would you convey the sentiment by removing anything? Thus no redundency.. and pedantry is silly.

-TF
 
Yip,

This missionary effort of yours to downplay or disparage education was old and misplaced long ago, and it's been your trumpeting call for far too long.

Not long ago you combined it with loud cries of a pilot shortage. You proclaimed that pilots don't need, and shouldn't get a degree; you advocated bypassing a college education in favor of flight hours, especially in light of the coming pilot shortage. Moreover, you held up USA Jet as the prime example of a place where one could get ahead in this ever expanding avaition world, without a degree.

Here you sit, as one of the prime figures at USA Jet, yourself unceremoniously tossed out along with everyone else. The pilot shortage that never existed is now clearly a fallacy...and best of all, you hold a masters degree. That's right...you, the missionary of ignorance, the professor of anti-education, holds not only a 4 year degree, but a masters degree, to boot.

Stop the flame bait, stop the sham.

Especially in the present climate, there's every reason in the world for an aspiring individual, even a pilot, to seek a degree.

Forget singing songs of the post WWII era. This is NOT it. It's a different time, and a different place, and a different industry.

A college degree is still a valuable asset.

I have no degree. I'd be more marketable with one. I'd probably have gone much farther much earlier, had I undertaken the effort to obtain a degree. Instead, I sought flight experience, took my first commercial job when I left high school, and have been working as a pilot and aircraft mechanic ever since.

I lack a degree. I am educated. There's a difference. We all get that; or should. However, this is a cause for you. You can't leave it alone, and it's long since become old and stale. You pass on bad counsel and bad advice when you tell the unwashed masses to forsake a degree in favor of flight hours. You're wrong.

A degree does not a pilot make, true enough. A degree does make a pilot more marketable, and more competitive. It provides other avenues of income, another trade. It provides choices, opportunity. It enhances, and uplifts, if one makes the effort, and it opens doors.

You can't really speak to the glories of having no degree and the uplifting effect it has on one's career...because you have two degrees. You don't have a leg to stand upon...telling others to forsake a degree, but holding college degrees yourself. I do, however...I am in the position to judge, not having one myself...and I'll be the first to tell others to go get that degree.

Forget your emotional appeals to eras past. Forget the window dressing. If you had counsel that might uplift and help another, it might be worth a dime to listen...but your counsel can only hurt, and doesn't offer truth or sense. You need to stop spreading these tired, false ideas. Enough is enough.
 
I agree that a degree does not make one a better pilot typically, but HR departments disagree with us because most of them are not pilots. Here is the problem, if the person holding the key to your success (HR departments) only know one thing, sometime we are forced to adapt to their views.

This is exactly why after 3000 hours of flight experience I am a Junior in College. Most of the time I enjoy taking the classes, which is not something I would have said when I was 18. So I figure if I enjoy it, and it might help me down the road, why not go for it?
 
Yip,

Stop the flame bait, stop the sham.

I lack a degree. I am educated.
.

Good to be back and hear the words of wisdom. There are many out there who have degree but are not educated and have no marketable skills. BTW I have nothing against a college degree, it just has nothing to do with flying an airplane and the reason a dergee makes you more marketable is becasue most HR types have degrees and they tend to look down on those who they thing are not as good as them.
 
Good to be back and hear the words of wisdom. There are many out there who have degree but are not educated and have no marketable skills. BTW I have nothing against a college degree, it just has nothing to do with flying an airplane and the reason a dergee makes you more marketable is becasue most HR types have degrees and they tend to look down on those who they thing are not as good as them.

My friend, I agree with you 100% on that. Education doesn't necessary correlate to a degree any more than hours and experience are tied. They're not.

I do think that everyone, given the opportunity, should seek a degree if they can. A degree of it's own accord confers nothing more than accreditation; it's paper and documentation. A degree based on the hard effort of the bearer, on the other hand is a record not only of effort bu accomplishment, and can serve as the basis of greater things to come.

For the one who lacks such credentials, it's a much steeper climb.
 

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