Originally Posted by
paco
I hear your mum, but a better strategy would be to get a backup qualification as an electrician or a plumber or similar that you can pick up or drop off quickly. Also, it depends on the degree - a Master's in underwater basket weaving would not be of much use anyway.
Sorry but this ‘advice’ is handed out a lot on here and I’ve got to strongly disagree. It’s like telling a doctor to first become spend two years becoming a plumber, or getting a degree in accountancy. To ‘have a backup. It’s mental.
If you want to be a pilot, become a pilot. If in the unlikely event you actually can’t get a job, then train to do something. This outcome is pretty unlikely, same for actually losing a class 1. But even if it happens, it’s taken the exact same amount of time as training the other way round.
But 9 times out of 10 you will get a job and have a good career. So the 2 years you spent training to do an utterly unrelated course for no real reason has been completely wasted. As has the money spent on it. And that’s two less years making big bucks as a training captain at the backend of your career as Rudestuff has said.
As for aviation ‘degrees’. From what I can see, and having flown with people who’ve done them, they’re a neat way to get student loan funding but relatively useless otherwise. It’s the definition of a basket weaving degree and generally from universities that aren’t exactly academically prestigious. As a pilot you’ll pay back your student loan, so you’re not saving anything going that way.
Although one plus for the degree route is that if you get your 2.1 in ‘planes’, then that would at least qualify you for some generic grad schemes, just nothing that would require a ‘real’ degree. But again, your aim presumably is not to work for Aldi on their grad scheme, but to become a pilot.