Who Is Going Or Will Be Going To Embry Riddle

[Murdoughnut]

A few questions for airforceusaf:

1. Where in the frick did you learn how to spell?
2. Are you foreign?
3. What does "Dad" fly for United? How long has he been there?

Look man, I am not trying to pick on you. I suck at writing, but it seems that you can't write for shoote. I am also trying to figure out if you are a Flamer...

My thoughts exactly - I admire the kid's eagerness, but ERAU is still an accredited four-year degree granting institution, right? So that means at some point you'll have to take English Comp 101 or something similar, right? Does anyone ever pay ERAU the 100k and fail out for academic reasons? This kid might want to take some community college classes first to see if he's cut out for college. If not, there's always the FBO route.

Sorry, I'm not trying to be insulting, but I used to advise high school students. I had my fair share of kids who were "sitting on a pair of two's" academically speaking, but were certain they'd breeze through college.

Regardless, best of luck to you.

 

[J.C.Airborne]

Hmmm...You hated this place so much that you...decided to become a full-time staff member. Boy, if that ain't just hypocrisy, I don't know what is. Go somewhere else, please. I'm begging you. God, I hope you don't work for me...Anonymity is a pain.

I've been here for a number of years as a flight instructor. Yes, the place has its drawbacks. Yes, some people hate the sims. However, some people think that flying is too expensive and they'd be bitching about that instead. Are we perfect? Nope. Are the people at Financial Aid helpful? Nope. Cheap tuition? Nope.

However, we're working on it. The problem is turning around a corporate culture that has expected others to conform to their idea of what is good and what is not. In the past year alone, ERAU has done the following to its Daytona Beach campus to address your concerns:

- ousted the top management (chairman, Chief CFI, and one Asst Chief CFI) of the Flight Department and streamlined the management structure

- ousted the President of the university and replaced him with very down-to-earth, no-BS guy intent on redirecting the $ to campus improvements and not to misguided programs like CAPT

- appointed a new Chancellor to the DB Campus (Dr. Tom Connolly - former Associate Dean of the College of Aviation and a really nice guy)

- redesigned the flight curriculum to offer more choices in curriculum; expect to see a single-engine AND multi-engine track available to all students, along with an option to fast-track your training (if you qualify, you'll fly 5-6 days per week instead of 3)

After all of this is said and done, we typically hire many of our own students as CFIs, where the pay is much better than your average flight school for the predictability of work that you get (you don't have to find your own students). Our CFIs start at $14.72/hour and top at about $22/hour with full faculty benefits, including free tuition. I got a graduate degree from ERAU free of charge. Not bad for a CFI. Can UND offer the same? I'm actually curious, as I don't know...

Don't discount the fact that ERAU graduates are everywhere. Somewhere else on this board someone mentioned pilots at interviews being ERAU grads. This is certainly true east of the Mississippi for DAB grads. West is true for PSC grads. Everywhere you fly you hear an ATC controller talking about how he attended back in '85. You'll meet pilots everywhere that will help you get a job. Again, perfect? Nope. Perhaps we need to work on managing our expectations...

Everyone on this campus is eerily aware of how poor customer service has been for too long and the leadership in place now has the attitude that you either will go along with improving the student experience or you will be slowly worked out of the system. It's gonna take a few years to fix it, but we're on our way. Yes, we're actually doing this.

As far as DB itself is concerned, it's much nicer now than it was when I got here...which isn't saying much. Still plenty of not-nice places, but you can avoid them quite easily. It's not as if you have gangs rolling down International Speedway Boulevard during the races. I lived in town for 5 years before moving north and am glad to be out, but I never feared for my safety when living in town. It's just a little too crazy with the bikes, races, and tourists. Like it or not, it's a tourist economy here with a ton of small colleges. It grows on you...unless you're homesick, in which case you'd even hate nice places like Denver, Minneapolis, DC, NYC, etc.

In any case, the bashing here is a little exaggerated but founded at least in some fact. Just know that we're doing our part to try to improve things a bunch. Not just a little. It needs to be more affordable with better service and a better experience. Period. It'll take some years to get there, however. In the meantime, really a pretty good school. And the AS degree can be worth it, if only for the internships (which help you get jobs at lower mins later).

Have fun and flame away.

UND also hires many of its students as CFIs which are eligible for comparable pay and full faculty benefits (not sure about free tuition though).

 

[Alex429595]

Of all the rips, cutdowns, and smart mouth remarks being made to the young guy who started this thread, there is one thing to remember. This career choice that you have made WILL become a job. Like every JOB it will have it's complaints. Especially, when you have 3 or 4 hours to sit in a plane to think about what pisses you off.

Welcome to our world. No matter what route we all took to get to where we are, most of us now have jobs, not paid hobbies. I hope this makes some since. We are pilots. We complain. We pick on each other. Those who cannot take the ribbing....well, they don't last long in this business.

I know what you are saying, and agree. I still think we should be able to respect each other as (future) professionals. A little professional courtesy is all thats asked.

And yes, if you are going to solicit the advice of experienced pilots, it makes it a lot easier for them to read your post if you try and write it in english. No one is going to pick on you for misspelling a word or two here or there, but it is annoying to have to pick through something with non existent sentence structure, lack of punctuation, and words with VERY creative spellings. Put a little more effort into your question, and you will find people put a little more effort into their responses. Just a little bit of constructive criticism.

 

[Turkey Shoot]

Never mind.

 

[J.C.Airborne]

I know what you are saying, and agree. I still think we should be able to respect each other as (future) professionals. A little professional courtesy is all thats asked.

And yes, if you are going to solicit the advice of experienced pilots, it makes it a lot easier for them to read your post if you try and write it in english. No one is going to pick on you for misspelling a word or two here or there, but it is annoying to have to pick through something with non existent sentence structure, lack of punctuation, and words with VERY creative spellings. Put a little more effort into your question, and you will find people put a little more effort into their responses. Just a little bit of constructive criticism.

Hmmm, ok. (anyone else seeing the hypocricy in this?)

 

[maaxfly]

as of right now i am planning on attending riddle to major in aviation business administration. anyone know anything about their business department? also i am planning to have my commercial and multi by the end of the summer and then by the time i get to riddle i would like to go into thier cfi program with the hope of becoming an instructor for them. any input would be greatly appreciated. and if i did become an instructor my tuition would be free (just want some clarification)? thanks!

 

[gkrangers]

I don't think theres one single person that could answer those questions, because everyones gonna tell you something different.

I highly doubt they just let you start working on your CFI. They are prolly gonna want you to redo a lot of stuff. But, these are questions you need to get answered...so call the school, take a tour, try to find someone competent in the flight department to talk to about what credit they'll give you for your licenses. Also, no, I don't see how you could get tuition for free. Maybe a little, but think about it...if you instruct, thats 15/hr plus 30k a year in tuition? Thats a whole lot of compensation. I just don't see it.

If you have your multi comm by the time you start here, just get your CFI at one of the other flight schools here in Daytona or nearby...then instruct at Riddle, if they hire you, or one of the other many flight schools in and around Daytona. You would probably be best off bypassing any Riddle flight training whatsoever...

 

[J.C.Airborne]

I don't think theres one single person that could answer those questions, because everyones gonna tell you something different.

I highly doubt they just let you start working on your CFI. They are prolly gonna want you to redo a lot of stuff. But, these are questions you need to get answered...so call the school, take a tour, try to find someone competent in the flight department to talk to about what credit they'll give you for your licenses. Also, no, I don't see how you could get tuition for free. Maybe a little, but think about it...if you instruct, thats 15/hr plus 30k a year in tuition? Thats a whole lot of compensation. I just don't see it.

If you have your multi comm by the time you start here, just get your CFI at one of the other flight schools here in Daytona or nearby...then instruct at Riddle, if they hire you, or one of the other many flight schools in and around Daytona. You would probably be best off bypassing any Riddle flight training whatsoever...

Embry-riddle is an excellent school for aviation and i would say go there for aviation if you can afford it. Obviously i am naturally biased towards UND because i go there but if your doing aviation buissness administration go to UND, our buisness school is highly recognized throughout the nation, in fact our entreprenuer program was recently ranked by forbes and the princeton review higher than Boston University and Standford University. You get your degree from the buisness school at UND which is much better than getting a buisness degree from an aviation school. It will be aviation buisness administration just like at riddle only from a fully accredited buissness school.

 

[gkrangers]

Embry-riddle is an excellent school for aviation and i would say go there for aviation if you can afford it. Obviously i am naturally biased towards UND because i go there but if your doing aviation buissness administration go to UND, our buisness school is highly recognized throughout the nation, in fact our entreprenuer program was recently ranked by forbes and the princeton review higher than Boston University and Standford University. You get your degree from the buisness school at UND which is much better than getting a buisness degree from an aviation school. It will be aviation buisness administration just like at riddle only from a fully accredited buissness school.

Sounds like a good idea.

 

[maaxfly]

Thanks for the responses! My instructor actually went to UND and has praised their program very much. He is now instructing at St Louis University and says that they have a very nice aviation program there. St. Louis also happens to be my home town so that is an attractive option. They have a very goof business school. I was at one point in time going to so for a AS major, but soon realized that it's such a restrictive degree and business was a better option. I think I may agree that a business degree from a regular university may do more for me in the long run so I still have more options to explore. If there are any more takes on the topic I would love to hear them. The more info I can gather the better.