New pilot eager for advice!!!!

[pilotyip]

MSW, you area rare sample of doing it all. I endorse your career path, because you did the important thing in your career. You flew airplanes, if you want to be a pilot you have to fly airplanes. The sooner the better. A 4-yr. degree has nothing to do with flying an airplane. Nice to have, fun to do, neat piece of paper to hang on the wall. You will most likely impress your future employers by your endeavor, but no more so than a pilot who took 6 yrs to get his degree and has 5000 hrs at age 25, with a 1000 hrs of TJ PIC. TJ PIC is still the resume fluff that separates the wanta be's from the pilots getting jobs. You are in good shape for the June 2007 hiring boom. BTW what is your degree in?

 

[Crimson03]

1. Go to college, any college, get an undergraduate degree in anything. Seriously.

2. Be aware that for some people, perhaps yourself hard to know until you've been there, what you do for work becomes work.

3. If you don't heed #2 you might run out of entertaining pasttimes someday.

 

[chrisdahut24]

wrong thread

 

[pilotyip]

If you want to be a college grad, by all means go to college for whatever reason motivates you to go to college. If you want to be a career pilot, fly airplanes. College has nothing to do with flying airplanes

 

[Onlyflyfreight]

Ooohhh! I wish it was like that!

Makes sense, but it's to bad some of the employers that I'd like to work for don't feel that way!

 

[Crimson03]

If you want to be a college grad, by all means go to college for whatever reason motivates you to go to college. If you want to be a career pilot, fly airplanes. College has nothing to do with flying airplanes

In some way I have to agree with this. The college is for when the flying is no longer fun, economically viable, tolerable, etc. That said college is easier to get done when you are young. Pilot wages are going to keep on falling, because they can. Flying as a profession already is but will become more so a job that people do for ten years or so and move on, with a few lifer stragglers that don't know when to or have the gumption to do something else.

 

[pilotyip]

Not crimson, you can still make a $100K per year by age 30 without a college degree and most likely have 11-13 days off per month. That is not a bad career goal. Especially considering you may be doing something you love to do. There many people in the US who would be envious of your position. According to the latest stats, household income more than $90K/yr puts that household in the upper 10% of US household income.

 

[msw]

pilotyip: To answer your question, my BS Degree is in Aeronautical Engineering.

To comment a bit more to the (presumably) young person who originally started the thread ........

I agree with Pilotyip to a certain extent, that a college degree really has nothing to do with the ability to fly an airplane, or to do so well. But for a young person just "starting out" in life, who knows they want to be a pilot, getting a college degree is all about having options for your future. When I was a 16 year old student pilot, I just KNEW I wanted to be an airline pilot. When I got my Private Pilot License on my 17th birthday, I still just knew I wanted to be an airline pilot. When I was 20 years old, flying sched 135 pax flights as a PIC in a Navajo Chieftain, I knew the airlines were where I was headed. By 23 years old, I was bored with gear up, autopilot on, tired of sleeping in motels and hanging out in airport lobbies, and was looking for a new career/adventure. Ironically, I ended up in another career field that also really had no great requirement for college educated employees ....... but which did satisfy my lust for action and adventure. But there were other career fields that I almost went into (at 23 years old) that would have required a college degree....... and having the college degree gave me the option to pursue those fields of endeavor, or not.

Two other minor points: A college degree is insurance (to a certain extent) if you lose your medical, as others have written. And..... I cannot tell you how many people I have met, over the years, who were in their 30's or 40's and WISHED they had gotten a college degree earlier in their life (before marriage, kids, families, jobs) when it would have been a lot easier and simpler for them to do so. It'll be easier now for you to get that degree, than later!

But my main point is this: Most young folks (teenagers) think they know everything - my two teenage kids certainly think so - but we all change as we mature, and sometimes our goals and desires in life change too. By all means, pursue your flying. But if you can also weave a college education into your current (flying) plans and activities as well, I think it will pay off in the future, but giving you more options.

 

[NYCPilot]

Nice post MSW.

 

[dream2fly2007]

Change your user name. It sounds ridiculous.

No it doesn't! It actually has meaning.....I dream to fly (don't we all???) and graduate in 2007 when I can actually realize my dreams....so I came up with dream2fly2007, which is cool. Unlike NYCpilot, which is gay.