Hi, reading your posting brought back memories. I like you had a desicion to make back in 1993 when I had to chose a college. I liked the water and all it had to offer but I liked flying even more. At the time, airline pilot hiring was pretty flat. They were hiring as pilots retired and a few extra for growth. As I said, I liked the sea and I lived in Boston at the time. I figured that I would go to Mass. Maritime and get my ratings during college on the side and gradually built my time to hopefully get picked up by a commuter. My parents and friends said I should go to a aeronautical college to fully concentrate on flying. My gut wanted to go maritime because jobs were readily available and I could afford extra training after college.
I listened to my parents and after researching ended up at FIT! . The school was nice but over rated as to the amount of actual flying time. Before accepting, the college admin and flight staff told me anything I wanted to hear to get me into the school. My 1st year I was only flying 3.0 hours per week. It was not before the middle of my second term did I get my private. I did meet a lot of JR's and Seniors there and they told me the real world. FIT considers a job placement as getting someone a CFI position anywhere in the country. Yes, a very select few did get beginning positions with small commuters. Seeing this, I knew I had to change the way I was going about this. After the first year I left FIT and went maritime, it was a fight but I did it. Finished maritime with a 3.75cpa and a CFII rating. I got my first choice of jobs after graduation on a American flag car carrier. 850 ft freighter that held about 1,000 cars. The stint was based out of Boston we would take European cars that came into port and ship them down to Baltimore, Jacksonville and New Orleans. Once there we took Japanese cars from New Orleans and did the trip in reverse. In total RT was 3 weeks and were never more than 20 miles of shore. I did 4 trips in a row and clear 28K after taxes. Then went to Flight Safety to pick up advanced ratings and was hired on as CFI. I did that until I ran out money which was about 9 months. I then went back and did 2 more stints at sea and picked up more cash and went back to FS. About 8 months later was I picked up by Continental Express. FS got me the interview, they had 20 openings and 500 resumes. What convinced the chief pilot to select me was my maritime background. He said that I was "thinking outside the box" meaning I had gone a different route to obtain my ratings and that I had current experience in a highly responsible job. He figured that if I could run a 500 million dollar ship and cargo that I had already proven my leadership capatilites and showed that I can accept responsibilities. Kiddingly he said an aircraft only cost 25 million. I worked my way up the ranks and was flying rt seat in a DC9 beginning march 01. Then 9/11 came and I and 2500 pilots were gone. Seeing that it might be a long stretch I went back to my old shipping company back in Nov. and worked for 3 months. In March I went out west and picked up my 737 rating and now I have an interview with Southwest in May.
To sum things up, I have no regrets going the maritime route and actually think I'm ahead of the game over my friends that stayed at FIT. It's your call but I was reading other posts and thought you should hear another view. Good Luck