Previous instructor here, chiming in. A lot of people on here say that Sierra is what you make it and it can be fun or it can be miserable. Honestly only one of the two is true and I am sure you can guess which.
Free housing, terrible, we are technically not allowed to have hot plates or toaster ovens in the dorms so if you do, you need to worry about that (room inspections happen once a month). I once saw a bathroom in one of the buildings, with so much black mold on the ceilings and walls that you could smell the dank odor from the persons bedroom. Roaches are a constant problem and it would be wise to set traps and spray for them. The air conditioning is available at will to the owner and I'm not exactly sure what his threshold is but during the transitioning from winter to summer, he opts to have the a/c off as long as possible. I have woken in the nights many a times during that period, profusely sweating.
Free food, also not so good. Initially the advertised breakfast for free and lunch for free. The breakfast unfortunately was a continental breakfast with a bowl of more often than not, rotten apples, a banana on occasion, and oranges. The jelly provided for the toast was so out dated that it was like trying to spread frozen butter on bread. The peanut butter provided for breakfast was a dish that was filled from some industrial jar I'm sure and when do e for the day was covered up by cellophane and brought back out the next day for use, bread crumbs and all included. Mind you that this was rarely used because of the quality and it would stay this way for awhile. They changed this all though about 4 months or so ago and they allow the instructors regular breakfast now, which is a constant rotation of literally only 4 or 5 dishes things heavily based on noodles. A saving grace is the waffle maker which helps break it up a bit. The cafeteria food is supposed to be Chinese food, but at a school where over 120 or so Chinese students go and none of them say the food tastes like Chinese food, you have to wonder.
Once you drive onto the old Air Force base, you kind of think "man this place is old and dilapidated." It doesn't stop there. The Dispatch building, the Operations Center, the simulators, and the planes are all the same way. I could go into detail about all of them but I would need a novel.
I read on here once, a quote, from Bob Dekilnsky saying "safety is our biggest concern" and something along the lines of, "if there were any issues we would gladly take the whole line down." I seriously doubt that considering such an issue did occur during the time that I worked there and no such action was taken. We at one time got a bad shipment of fuel containing millions little metal shavings in it. The solution, sump the tanks and squawk the airplane. The corrective action by maintenance, as per directed from management, sump the tanks again and put could not duplicate on the squawk sheet. I will tell you that I personally know at least 4 planes that either experienced engine roughness and fluctuations in rpm of more than 200 and/or a complete engine shutdown.
I could seriously go on for hours about this place. But as is said by most, it is what you make it, people are right about that. If you do go there, you get your hours and that is for sure 100hrs per month is the minimum and when your students aren't stuck waiting a month for check rides, you can certainly attain that. During you free time you can do about the only fun thing there is to do, and that is hang out with the other great people that work there, and that is really the only positive to flying at Sierra.
Anyways good luck to you all and safe flying, I hope to have helped someone with this post.
