Pilot shortage?????

[Penguin46]

All part of the 2012 hiring boom, by 2014 the college degree will no longer define who gets hired.

I agree it is going the way of vocational tech. Doesn't attract the talent/education it once commanded with the former higher pay.

 

[pilotyip]

I agree it is going the way of vocational tech. Doesn't attract the talent/education it once commanded with the former higher pay.

A college degree has nothing to do with talent in the cockpit. In fact it has little to do with talent in the marketplace. The college degree has become a pay your fee get a "B" at too many institutions to have the college degree by itself is not the ultimate proof of talent or education.

 

[jonjuan]

The college degree has become a pay your fee get a "B" at too many institutions to have the college degree by itself is not the ultimate proof of talent or education.

Not the ultimate proof, but a pretty reliable indicator of someone's overall competency. Heck, why even require a hs degree for that matter. It will always be a college degree at the more reputable of legacies.

 

[pilotyip]

Not the ultimate proof, but a pretty reliable indicator of someone's overall competency. Heck, why even require a hs degree for that matter. It will always be a college degree at the more reputable of legacies.

How about we have to write an ACT of 29 to get an ATP, that would certainly cut down the pilot ranks by testing for talent and intelligence.

In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We've elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree.

And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel. In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a "good job" into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber if you can find one is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we'll all be in need of both.

Guys like my grandfathers with 8th grade educations are no less important to civilized life than they were 70 years ago. Maybe they're in short supply because we don't acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.

BTW You sound pretty cock sure of your elevated status and probably look down on those of us as the unwashed who do much match your lofty status. The legacies have hired without college degrees in the pilot shortages of 1999 and will do so again, by redefining competitive minimums. Is SWA a legacy? They were hiring non-college grads 4 years ago. Why because they were great guys who could fly an airplane. Maybe you will have boycott SWA if they offer you a job. I mean after all you would have to hang around people without a degree.

 

[Saluki Dawg]

If we have any pilots without a four year degree, I would guess that it's less than one percent of a pilot group of over 6,000 (soon to be 7,700) pilots. I would probably play the percentages and get the degree, but that's just me YMMV.

 

[pilotyip]

If we have any pilots without a four year degree, I would guess that it's less than one percent of a pilot group of over 6,000 (soon to be 7,700) pilots. I would probably play the percentages and get the degree, but that's just me YMMV.

wasn't that way before 9-11

That is most likely the way a lazy HR person looks at it, the probability of college degree person being successful is higher than that of an high school drop out, therefore I will not look at anything in person's history except that box on page one in lower left hand corner.

There are so more ways to prove yourself beyond that simpleton degree than anyone who wants to pay their fee and get their “B” can obtain. For instance the graduate of a military flight training program, they are most likely superior to the college graduate even thought they do not have the paper, partially because they have been screened, unlike just having money and going to a college. This comes to mind and I am sure there are other examples

 

[Turtle21]

wasn't that way before 9-11

That is most likely the way a lazy HR person looks at it, the probability of college degree person being successful is higher than that of an high school drop out, therefore I will not look at anything in person's history except that box on page one in lower left hand corner.

There are so more ways to prove yourself beyond that simpleton degree than anyone who wants to pay their fee and get their “B” can obtain. For instance the graduate of a military flight training program, they are most likely superior to the college graduate even thought they do not have the paper, partially because they have been screened, unlike just having money and going to a college. This comes to mind and I am sure there are other examples

All pilots from the Air Force version of military flight training programs completed a four year degree before they were entered in the flight program.... Even so I do agree that it is an easy HR discriminator, whether or not it may be warranted.

 

[pilotyip]

All pilots from the Air Force version of military flight training programs completed a four year degree before they were entered in the flight program.... Even so I do agree that it is an easy HR discriminator, whether or not it may be warranted.

Probably the army is the only one taking non-4 yr degree guys, but back in the good ole days, we had a number of pilots flying in the Navy without degrees, called them NavCads. They were good pilots and many went on to jobs at the majors, DAL, Pam Am, Eal, etc.

 

[ASA_Aviator]

wasn't that way before 9-11

That is most likely the way a lazy HR person looks at it, the probability of college degree person being successful is higher than that of an high school drop out, therefore I will not look at anything in person's history except that box on page one in lower left hand corner.

There are so more ways to prove yourself beyond that simpleton degree than anyone who wants to pay their fee and get their “B” can obtain. For instance the graduate of a military flight training program, they are most likely superior to the college graduate even thought they do not have the paper, partially because they have been screened, unlike just having money and going to a college. This comes to mind and I am sure there are other examples

Are you ever going to quit whining about the fact that degrees are the norm now? Get over it. There's no guarantee that someone with a degree is educated, but the chances that someone without a degree are educated are lower. Period. It is a hoop one must jump through in our society.

Hire who you want, but you should stop leading young people astray by recommending they not get a degree.

 

[Indy319FA]

Last time I checked a good old boy from West Virginia named Yeager had no college degree, and as I remember he was a pretty fair pilot.....