Originally Posted by
Scott Duch
I'm starting my degree in aeronautical engineering in september then going into pilot training after....you have to have somthing to fall back on, your ATPL is alot of rubbish and 100% worthless if somthing stops you from being a commercial pilot....medical for example. If you left school and went straight into flying and was a pilot for so long andthen lost your job for some unforseen reason and couldn't fly again what would you do? With the amount of people going to university these you can't find a decsent replacement job with grades obtained from school.....
Just reinforcing that point, during my stint as a university lecturer I had an exceptional student on an RAF scholarship. Speaking to their UAS CO they were a strong candidate straight through to fast jets, from my perspective teaching Aero-Eng they were headed straight for a first. (You can hate some people, I was a much more mediocre student on both counts.)
Then a minor medical problem cropped up - just enough to stop them having a full RAF pilot medical. Said student is still happy flying privately, still in the RAF, but took a step sideways into Engineering branch - which their degree permitted without any trouble. Best guess is that in not too many years in the future they'll probably be a FJ SEngO somewhere.
On another tack - I'd still agree with many others that if ALL you ever want to do is fly, then a degree may well be a waste of time and money. But if you are, say, 20-25 now - that's 40+ years worth of career ahead of you, and a degree taken now may offer many later career development options beyond the captaincy. Of course you can do a degree later, but may well have a lot of financial commitments then which make it much harder than now without much in the way of financial commitments.
G