Brutus
New Member
well, i did it, i got a phone call this morning (dec 24th) from prescott congratulating me on acceptance into riddle. now what? should i be happy, excited or what? well to be perfectly honest, im neither.
i have been wanting to go to this university since 7th grade. to this day i still have that tattered 97 undergraduate catalog. all my relatives know what riddle is when they had not even heard about it. when someone asked me where i wanted to go, i replied ERAU before they even finished their question. i had not even a shadow of a doubt what i wanted to do with my life, i used to dream about this day of me getting the call and me jumping up and down. i used to imagine that i would call every person i know and not be able to stop talking about it till the summer. i used to think i would not be able to got to sleep for a week! u know what...after i got done talking to the admissions officer, i went back to sleep! i woke up 3 hours later went downstairs and told my parents i got in. man i tell u they about flipped! at first they were mad that i didnt come down and tell them Immediately but they got over it. after settling down i told them Kettering University (i'll go into depth later on) is where i want to go and surprisingly they understood.
a week before, my dad and i left to kettering university formerly known as GMI (general motors institute of technology) in flint, michigan. my family lives in ohio so the drive wasnt that tiresome. what attracted me to gmi was their co-op program and their reputation. its a top school because its geared towards employment after college. i believe they are the only univeristy being sponsored by over 700 major companies. u can talk about, general motors, rockwell, copeland, trw, bose, boeing, ups, microsoft, and the list goes on and on. its a two way street, these top companies pump in the money to receive the best co-op students to work for them, after they graduate they are immediately hired by their original co-op company. one thing about this university is that graduates have an edge over others because they have 4 years of experience to fall back on. during a year, u co-op for 3 months and go to class for 3 months and continue that cycle. so in the end u have hands on experience and have gone through the interview and hiring process by the time u graduate. plus this is a pretty difficult university to get into, with an acceptance rate at 66%.
other than trying to accomplish this 'dream' of becoming an airline pilot, my other focus is to get a sound foundation in engineering, with experience mind u, and then to pursue an MBA from an ivy league school. by doing this my future is looking towards the corporate world. its a perfect combination: BS in Electrical Enginneering and an MBA in marketing. another factoid is that if u look at all the Harvard graduates in the MBA program, its been stated that most transfering students into Harvard pursuing an MBA, are from Kettering. kettering is also one of the 17 members of the Association of Independent Technological Universities (AITU), the group consists of universities like MIT, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Polytechnic, and so on. anyway that gives u an idea of my choices.
so, i sit here and weigh in my options, i only applied for two univeristies and i got accepted into both. what do i want to do? if i go to riddle and go for the BSAS program what do i get out of it in the end? i get a degree thats worthless for anything other than becoming an airline pilot, and if i should choose that this field is not for me, then what? i wasted 4 years of my life and im back into square one. i have been told time after time, that this industry requires a lot of patience and hard work. my dad tells me everyday that the guys who fly the big ones, have passion for this industry and they really couldnt care less how much they are paid, because this is their dream and they love to do it. ive been told that if i have one ounce of doubt about pursuing this, then i should switch to something else. i have read a lot about this field and i know what it takes to make it there. i realize that the industry is down, and trying to jump in now would be foolish. this is an extremely risky business, but i realize that when all the smoke clears, u live a satisfying lifestyle. however, im not ready to starve after college to get there. i have passion but not as much passion as some of u guys have. i see more pros over at kettering after college than at riddle.
anyway to close this (hope i have not been too boring), i want to thank everybody who have replied to my posts regarding embry riddle because it has really helped me make an informed decision. i especially want to thank doug, for creating the best aviation website ever, and for his efforts to inform people about the aviation industry. as for me, well, im done with aviation. after this post im going to try to relax more and simply forget about all the thoughts of becoming an airline pilot. i realize its a great lifesyle and everything but i guess its only for a select group of people. i registered on Wed Dec 19 2001 thinking i'm going to be the next captain of Northwest Airlines (lol) but exactly one year later im thinking that 'next' captain for NWA is only a dreamer. thanks
i have been wanting to go to this university since 7th grade. to this day i still have that tattered 97 undergraduate catalog. all my relatives know what riddle is when they had not even heard about it. when someone asked me where i wanted to go, i replied ERAU before they even finished their question. i had not even a shadow of a doubt what i wanted to do with my life, i used to dream about this day of me getting the call and me jumping up and down. i used to imagine that i would call every person i know and not be able to stop talking about it till the summer. i used to think i would not be able to got to sleep for a week! u know what...after i got done talking to the admissions officer, i went back to sleep! i woke up 3 hours later went downstairs and told my parents i got in. man i tell u they about flipped! at first they were mad that i didnt come down and tell them Immediately but they got over it. after settling down i told them Kettering University (i'll go into depth later on) is where i want to go and surprisingly they understood.
a week before, my dad and i left to kettering university formerly known as GMI (general motors institute of technology) in flint, michigan. my family lives in ohio so the drive wasnt that tiresome. what attracted me to gmi was their co-op program and their reputation. its a top school because its geared towards employment after college. i believe they are the only univeristy being sponsored by over 700 major companies. u can talk about, general motors, rockwell, copeland, trw, bose, boeing, ups, microsoft, and the list goes on and on. its a two way street, these top companies pump in the money to receive the best co-op students to work for them, after they graduate they are immediately hired by their original co-op company. one thing about this university is that graduates have an edge over others because they have 4 years of experience to fall back on. during a year, u co-op for 3 months and go to class for 3 months and continue that cycle. so in the end u have hands on experience and have gone through the interview and hiring process by the time u graduate. plus this is a pretty difficult university to get into, with an acceptance rate at 66%.
other than trying to accomplish this 'dream' of becoming an airline pilot, my other focus is to get a sound foundation in engineering, with experience mind u, and then to pursue an MBA from an ivy league school. by doing this my future is looking towards the corporate world. its a perfect combination: BS in Electrical Enginneering and an MBA in marketing. another factoid is that if u look at all the Harvard graduates in the MBA program, its been stated that most transfering students into Harvard pursuing an MBA, are from Kettering. kettering is also one of the 17 members of the Association of Independent Technological Universities (AITU), the group consists of universities like MIT, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Polytechnic, and so on. anyway that gives u an idea of my choices.
so, i sit here and weigh in my options, i only applied for two univeristies and i got accepted into both. what do i want to do? if i go to riddle and go for the BSAS program what do i get out of it in the end? i get a degree thats worthless for anything other than becoming an airline pilot, and if i should choose that this field is not for me, then what? i wasted 4 years of my life and im back into square one. i have been told time after time, that this industry requires a lot of patience and hard work. my dad tells me everyday that the guys who fly the big ones, have passion for this industry and they really couldnt care less how much they are paid, because this is their dream and they love to do it. ive been told that if i have one ounce of doubt about pursuing this, then i should switch to something else. i have read a lot about this field and i know what it takes to make it there. i realize that the industry is down, and trying to jump in now would be foolish. this is an extremely risky business, but i realize that when all the smoke clears, u live a satisfying lifestyle. however, im not ready to starve after college to get there. i have passion but not as much passion as some of u guys have. i see more pros over at kettering after college than at riddle.
anyway to close this (hope i have not been too boring), i want to thank everybody who have replied to my posts regarding embry riddle because it has really helped me make an informed decision. i especially want to thank doug, for creating the best aviation website ever, and for his efforts to inform people about the aviation industry. as for me, well, im done with aviation. after this post im going to try to relax more and simply forget about all the thoughts of becoming an airline pilot. i realize its a great lifesyle and everything but i guess its only for a select group of people. i registered on Wed Dec 19 2001 thinking i'm going to be the next captain of Northwest Airlines (lol) but exactly one year later im thinking that 'next' captain for NWA is only a dreamer. thanks