PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Education: What A Levels and Degree (if any)?!(Apr '09)
Old 21st Jun 2007, 08:47
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portsharbourflyer
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As said it can provide you with a career to fund the flight training,
but remember the following
1) I didn't have to pay tuition fees, hence I came out of university debt free.
2) Graduate engineers salaries in my opinion are not that fantastic, considering how demanding the degree is compared to other subjects, especially if you have to move away from home and live independently.
3) The salaries were high enough for me to get a credit rating to borrow to fund my training; however it was contract earnings that cleared a reasonble amount of my debt, I was lucky that I was able to contract with minimal experience. On permanent staff salaries I would have struggled.
There are other things you could do to gain experience and improve your maturity and gain the finance to fund the training outside of doing a degree.
A degree is now a very expensive way to gain maturity and experience; do an engineering degree if you want or consider engineering as a career, but it is not something you will enjoy if flying is your only interest.
There is a massive shortage of licensed avionics engineers at the moment, consider trying to get an apprenticeship to become an avionics technician. The pay wont be great while an apprentice, but you will be paid while training rather than acquiring debt aswell as gaining a fall back trade, but it willl put you in a good postion to network. Majority of graduate engineers jobs are in design offices far removed from the "coal face" and not particulary good for networking.

Last edited by portsharbourflyer; 21st Jun 2007 at 08:57.
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