Originally Posted by
Caspian1
@ Flying184
Thanks a lot for the above re training - extremely helpful. Difficult situations tend to be exaggerated (particularly by the prospective employer) so it's nice to hear real world accounts such as yours.
For the initial nine months of training I guess I will have to devote alternate Sundays to either (a) seeing the kids, or (b) working to feed the kids and keep the other job!
Any others going through training at the moment? Be interested to hear what your typical weekends are like.
Hi
I am currently going through basic training at NATS so if I may chip in a little bit.
As Flying184 has already said, the workload during training is pretty tough and I would also urge caution with your current plan to do consultancy work on the side. My basic course seems to be run differently from what Flying184 has described, but you would find it very difficult to have free time to do much else.
To give you an idea, after the 0800-1600 day at college I usually do an additional 3 hours study in the evening, and probably 4/5 hours at the weekend with one day off. You don't have continuous exams every week as mentioned before, but you do have a massive amount of theory to learn initially, with your first written exam (covering 4 of the topics) about 5 weeks into the course. You then have your other written exam about 2 weeks after this, with practical exams the week after that, so pretty relentless. There is no time to take your foot off the throttle and you really need to hit the ground running when it comes to learning the theory, let alone working on your practical technique.
You need to decided how much work you can realistically put into training, but I would suggest what you have described as your plan currently, if you want a good chance of passing the courses, may be very difficult to maintain without feeling burned out. Everyone is different though, but I can only advise from my experience.
Any other questions feel free to ask.