I finished my BSc 23 years ago majoring in Genetics, and Biochemistry.
I never worked in that field; instead I went into banking and found my way into IT around 2 years later. I got the IT job because I had a degree. The company wanted "proof" that I could do some advance study and apply analytical processes to my work. In their opinion,
any degree proved this. My degree hasn't helped me get any of my avaition work.
I've never seen my degree as a "backup" and I woudn't recommend anyone to do a degree as a backup.
Firstly, you'd be spending money and around three years of your life doing something that is NOT your first career choice.
Second, a degree without related job experience will have a shelf-life, and some (like mine) were totally out of date after three years of completion. All it may be useful for is getting a look in the door (as was mine); which at three years and HECS is an expensive look in.
DIVOSH advice: ONLY DO A DEGREE IF YOU WANT TO!
Don't waste three years of your life and whatever HECS cash doing something that you don't really want to do (Trust me on this
)!
If you want to fly, FLY!
If you want to get into aviation management and need a degree to do it, FLY! (Do the aviation degree/MBA/etc part-time later on)
No australian airline currently requires a degree for flight crew, and while that remains, there is little point in getting one until later on in your career, IMHO.
Degrees are great for some careers, but not others.
Take IT for example. Whilst one guy is off getting a degree, the other started as a lowly IT geek in a computer shop working on computers or perhaps at Harvey Norman. 3-4 years later both these guys go for the same job.
Not sure of your IT background, Martin, but these two guys in your hypothetical wont be going for the same IT job unless the IT Geek did part-time tertiary/TAFE work while at Harvey Norman.
In 2009, no degree/qualification = no IT career.
(I wont pick on your flying examples Martin, but they're not much good either, IMHO).
As far as I've seen, in aviation the most important "qualifications"s are TT, closely followed by endorsement/time on type. A bit of a generalisation, but they would be the top two. Things like degrees come in as "desirable", if at all.
Cheers,
DIVOSH!