Originally Posted by Vortex Thing
It does however make you more qualified if you have one and someone else does not. Hence why FTSE listed firms frequently have graduate recruitment and management programs. Look at the requirements for Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst Young, KPMG, All Big 5 Banks, GSK, Vodafone, Microsoft, the list goes on and on....
Having a degree in business studies makes you more qualified to fly an aircraft than someone who doesn't? Yes, whilst on paper it's a qualification, it's fairly useless if you don't use it! Not sure of your logic there.
As you say, most companies use it as a filtering tool, or to ascertain that somebody has a grounded knowledge of the industry they are entering. Seeing that there are plenty of filtering tools in aviation (groundschool, skills tests, sim checks etc) then that ticks the "filtering" box. As for a grounded knowledge, you have to sit specific exams to work for an airline (14 of them) so there is your knowledge factor.
Whilst knowledge is great, excellent hand eye coordination skills and mental capacity must count for a bit more. Indeed, if you were recruiting and one person had a degree, the other did not but the one that did not have a degree had a far better recommendation with regards to raw flying talent / skill but both the same groundschool mark, surely you wouldn't go for the one with the degree simply because he has a degree.
For aviation purposes, the only time a degree seems useful is if you have two people with exactly the same hours, flying talent, groundschool marks and personality, or it is a degree in something heavily weighted towards aviation.
Otherwise, it seems fairly irrelevant for me.
Originally Posted by Vortex Thing
It doesn't matter what it is in it just demonstrates that your mind can work in a certain way
Does groundschool not do this? Do A levels not do this? A few people (here too) mention that A levels were more stressful / difficult than their degree!
I do agree though that a degree is more applicable to roles in an airline outside of flying.
To put it simply, for the role of a pilot, what does a degree (not related to flying) show?
- Life experience? No, you can get better experience of that outside of uni.
- Knowledge? A levels are good for that - three subjects, lots of exams.
- Dedication to a task? Spending £60,000 or £45,000 plus studying for 14 exams sounds like dedication.
- Basic level of knowledge? A levels...