Student loans could help avert U.S. airline pilot shortage: union head

Cherokee_Cruiser said:
But in all those fields of doctors and lawyers, the 4-yr is a basic entry requirement. Each of those career fields requires another 4 years in med school or law school. I can't speak for investment banking but I have a feeling that probably requires further schooling, eg, an MBA or something. So for these career fields, the 4-year degree doesn't matter as much.

But talk about jobs you can get with ONLY a 4-year bachelor degree, and the target gets narrowed very quickly, and liberal arts are just not going to cut it.
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My point about medicine and banking (less so law) was only that many would think that a liberal arts major would not be able to either get into med school or get a job on Wall Street with those degrees. Simply not true. Nor is it all that uncommon.

Many investment banking M&A analysts don't have graduate level degrees for the record. I know some that went back and got an MBA and many who didn't. It hasn't made a lot of impact on their careers. Most companies teach them what they want them to know.

Bottom line my degree in history never stopped me from getting jobs right out of college long before I started flying. After my first job no one asked what my major was nor what me GPA was. You guys are reading too much into this. Like anything else it's about networking, internships, selling yourself, etc.
 
Cav said:
My point about medicine and banking (less so law) was only that many would think that a liberal arts major would not be able to either get into med school or get a job on Wall Street with those degrees. Simply not true. Nor is it all that uncommon.

Many investment banking M&A analysts don't have graduate level degrees for the record. I know some that went back and got an MBA and many who didn't. It hasn't made a lot of impact on their careers. Most companies teach them what they want them to know.

Bottom line my degree in history never stopped me from getting jobs right out of college long before I started flying. After my first job no one asked what my major was nor what me GPA was. You guys are reading too much into this. Like anything else it's about networking, internships, selling yourself, etc.
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Yes, after you're established it doesn't matter what your degree was in. But it's until then.

Honestly, for a 4-year degree, if a guy is smart in math/science, I'd highly recommend engineering. It's a professional 4-year degree and you are very likely to get a job right away at age 22 out of college and get a very good starting salary.

Another recommendation I would have is a 4-year degree in language in Farsi, Arabic, or Urdu. But Arabic is a huge one. Every single person I knew at UMich who was taking Arabic was a white American. Nail down the language (and you don't even have to be level 5 native fluent, but just get to a decent 3-4 level), and the opportunities are plenty at the NSA, FBI, and CIA. There's a shortage of foreign language specialists pretty much everywhere.
 
surreal1221 said:
So it is a pilot shortage and not a pay shortage?

And how wonderful for the next generation of up and comers.
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Pay shortage.

There are plenty of licensed pilots who chose not to pursue full-time professional aviation (or dropped out) because of economics.

At some point, we have to put our big boy pants on as a union and admit that we played a significant role in this.
 
Derg said:
…and parents.

…and kids who are the "Johnny Football Hero" who emphasize sports over education.
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But what about majoring in Flute or Recorder?

Worked for Zamfir

Zamfir.jpeg
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Honestly, for a 4-year degree, if a guy is smart in math/science, I'd highly recommend engineering. It's a professional 4-year degree and you are very likely to get a job right away at age 22 out of college and get a very good starting salary.
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It is much easier to say that, than to actually do it. The school I went to, which was hardly the best, had an average SAT score of 1350 - which was about the top 4% at the time. That leaves 96% of SAT test takers that aren't going to be competitive to even get into such a school. These are very bright students we are talking about here, if they did something other than engineering, they would likely be very successful anyway. And engineering school is a lot of work. Enough that if you aren't really interested in it, you probably won't finish.

Even with a degree in say, Electrical Engineering - there actually aren't that many jobs. Probably half have moved overseas in the last decade. Even in the US, most tend to require an H1-B. http://www.computerworld.com/articl...cal-engineering-employment-trending-down.html. I know of exactly one of my friends that were EE majors in school that actually ended up with jobs in the field.

That said, there is usually strong demand for Physics, Mathematics and EE majors that can write software.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
It is much easier to say that, than to actually do it. The school I went to, which was hardly the best, had an average SAT score of 1350 - which was about the top 4% at the time. That leaves 96% of SAT test takers that aren't going to be competitive to even get into such a school. These are very bright students we are talking about here, if they did something other than engineering, they would likely be very successful anyway. And engineering school is a lot of work. Enough that if you aren't really interested in it, you probably won't finish.

Even with a degree in say, Electrical Engineering - there actually aren't that many jobs. Probably half have moved overseas in the last decade. Even in the US, most tend to require an H1-B. http://www.computerworld.com/articl...cal-engineering-employment-trending-down.html. I know of exactly one of my friends that were EE majors in school that actually ended up with jobs in the field.

That said, there is usually strong demand for Physics, Mathematics and EE majors that can write software.
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I had a 1350 on the SAT (out of 1600) and I don't consider myself the brightest. If that puts me at the top 4% of the country's 18 year olds then damn we are falling behind other country's college age kids.

I wouldn't recommend EE, instead I'd go with mechanical engineering.
 
jskibo said:
SAT? What the hell is that?

I was a veteran, no SAT required at any Illinois State school. (Thank god)
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Scholastic Aptitude Testing. The math section was very reasonable but the verbal was a little ridiculous, especially the analogy portion. I had a 730 math and 620 verbal.

The other big test was the ACT, but I never took that. Usually you take one or the other.

Of course, there's a good case to be made that these tests are mostly just crap and not really going to be a good measure of how you'll do in college. Again, I will say the math section was dead on in terms of what you should be learning in high school. But the verbal was terrible.
 
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