UND or another school??

cardsfan05

Well-Known Member
I'm currently in HS, looking into aviation colleges... I'll come into college with my PPL.. From the current UND students, what do you think of Grand Forks, the university, aviation program as a whole...people, professors, etc.?

Ultimately, would you choose UND again, or would you consider another school? If so...any ideas besides Riddle?

Any sort of info is great. thanks!
 
I've enjoyed my 4 years here. Don't know if i could stay much longer though. Looking back, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I picked UND over my other offers from Purdue, ERAU-Daytona, and Kent State.

A nice thing about UND is that it is a public school as opposed to UND. I paid one year at out-of-state costs and then was granted North Dakota residency so why tuition bills plummeted.

The aviation program is excellent and I feel the professors bring a great variety into the teaching, but just like any college program, it will have its downsides. Winters tend to suck but you get used to it.
 
I've enjoyed my 4 years here. Don't know if i could stay much longer though. Looking back, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I picked UND over my other offers from Purdue, ERAU-Daytona, and Kent State.

A nice thing about UND is that it is a public school as opposed to ERAU. I paid one year at out-of-state costs and then was granted North Dakota residency so why tuition bills plummeted.

The aviation program is excellent and I feel the professors bring a great variety into the teaching, but just like any college program, it will have its downsides. Winters tend to suck but you get used to it.

Yes I would have to find a way to get passed those winters by going to the wellness center or something.. Also the new ATC simulator looks really cool! :D
 
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I got my PPL part 61 then transferred to UND from another school. There are some things to complain about but overall it was a good choice, I would do it again. I think it is the best place to come if you want to get all of your certificates quickly without spending a crazy amount of money. Paying rent for at least one summer to establish residency here will save tens of thousands in the long run.
 
I got my PPL part 61 then transferred to UND from another school. There are some things to complain about but overall it was a good choice, I would do it again. I think it is the best place to come if you want to get all of your certificates quickly without spending a crazy amount of money. Paying rent for at least one summer to establish residency here will save tens of thousands in the long run.

Is getting flight time an issue during the cold weather?
 
Is getting flight time an issue during the cold weather?

Yes and no. There are long stretches when it is hard to fly. Solo flights are the worst to schedule because the weather has to basically be clear and a million for you to go.

That said, the courses are set up so that you have plenty of time to finish the flying even if the weather is bad. As long as you start the lessons early and stay on template (flying 3 times a week) then it shouldn't be a problem. This is my third winter and UND and I've never incompleted a flight course.
 
Is getting flight time an issue during the cold weather?

During the really cold parts of the winter,the weather is often great for flying, but during the fall and spring, the weather is usually terrible, with several multiple-day stretches of low ceilings and/or icing that make flying difficult. December-February is generally decent flying weather (since it's too cold for much cloud cover or snow), but there will be a few periods (typically 1-2 days each) in those months when blizzards will shut things down.

I spent six years up there (four as a student, two as an instructor), and generally liked it and would probably do it again, but there are some drawbacks.

On the positive side, the faculty at Odegard are almost universally top notch, the instructors are generally pretty good, the airplanes are maintained in excellent condition and are much better equipped than you'll see at part 61 schools, and the gen-ed courses at UND are very solid, since UND functions as a state university that happens to have a world-class flight school attached (as opposed to the "flight school that added a college" approach Riddle takes). Campus life at UND is far more interesting than anything Riddle could provide (North Dakota actually has women!), and Grand Forks is a great place to live, although it is a small city and doesn't have a ton of things going on 24-7.

I do have issues with how UND treats their instructors, but as a student, my only complaint was that the "UND way" of doing things doesn't always carry over well to the real world (especially if you instruct somewhere else), and I think some of their safety policies go a little too far and remove some of the decision making that students need to be able to learn.

I actually looked at Riddle before coming to UND, and aside from the massive cost difference (UND is less than half the tuition, for a much better general education background, IMHO), the deciding factor to me was the attitudes of the two schools. All of the faculty I talked to at Riddle struck me as almost arrogant, and the school was selling the hell out of the "you'll go to a major airline and make big bucks!" line whenever job prospects were brought up. In contrast, the faculty I met at UND were a lot more down to earth, and they flat out told people there on a campus visit that airlines weren't a stable industry, regional pay was pretty bad, and they strongly recommended minoring (or getting a second major) in something that wasn't flying.
 
During the really cold parts of the winter,the weather is often great for flying, but during the fall and spring, the weather is usually terrible, with several multiple-day stretches of low ceilings and/or icing that make flying difficult. December-February is generally decent flying weather (since it's too cold for much cloud cover or snow), but there will be a few periods (typically 1-2 days each) in those months when blizzards will shut things down.

I spent six years up there (four as a student, two as an instructor), and generally liked it and would probably do it again, but there are some drawbacks.

On the positive side, the faculty at Odegard are almost universally top notch, the instructors are generally pretty good, the airplanes are maintained in excellent condition and are much better equipped than you'll see at part 61 schools, and the gen-ed courses at UND are very solid, since UND functions as a state university that happens to have a world-class flight school attached (as opposed to the "flight school that added a college" approach Riddle takes). Campus life at UND is far more interesting than anything Riddle could provide (North Dakota actually has women!), and Grand Forks is a great place to live, although it is a small city and doesn't have a ton of things going on 24-7.

I do have issues with how UND treats their instructors, but as a student, my only complaint was that the "UND way" of doing things doesn't always carry over well to the real world (especially if you instruct somewhere else), and I think some of their safety policies go a little too far and remove some of the decision making that students need to be able to learn.

I actually looked at Riddle before coming to UND, and aside from the massive cost difference (UND is less than half the tuition, for a much better general education background, IMHO), the deciding factor to me was the attitudes of the two schools. All of the faculty I talked to at Riddle struck me as almost arrogant, and the school was selling the hell out of the "you'll go to a major airline and make big bucks!" line whenever job prospects were brought up. In contrast, the faculty I met at UND were a lot more down to earth, and they flat out told people there on a campus visit that airlines weren't a stable industry, regional pay was pretty bad, and they strongly recommended minoring (or getting a second major) in something that wasn't flying.

What were the issues regarding treating the Instructors? Too much of a workload?
 
To start off, I have nothing but good things to say about the vast majority of the managers at UND and the people that work for their flight department. Most of the people there clearly enjoy what they were doing, and were more than willing to help instructors that had questions about things.

Basically, most of it came down to the fact that I was assigned to an immediate supervisor who wasn't terribly good at the job, combined with some bad luck on my part. For reasons I never got explained, my supervisor repeatedly removed students from my schedule and assigned them to someone else (without consulting me or the students first), which hurt my paychecks pretty badly. Adding to the fun, the few students that remained on my schedule had been transferred to me when they were significantly behind the template for their training, and I was getting hounded as to why they weren't caught up yet (ignoring the fact that almost no flying had ensued for several days due to low ceilings and icing).

I realized that I was starting to hate my job and was making horrible money (the schedule shennanigans meant that I never broke $10k/yr, despite being available full time), so I found an instructing job somewhere with nicer weather, resigned at UND, and have never regretted the decision.

That said, my experience wasn't typical and had that supervisor not been hired (he replaced a guy who everyone absolutely loved), I probably wouldn't have ended up leaving.
 
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