Originally Posted by
Dodo56
It's been said again and again. If you want to design aircraft and components, do a degree. If you want to work as an aircraft mechanic do an apprenticeship.
Forget dreams of doing a degree and walking into a maintenance job. It simply doesn't happen - not within EASA anyway. The degrees may offer a way through the taught/academic parts of the qualification but without the 5 years hands on experience they are worthless. I get several applications a week from people who have done the degree and can't get anywhere to do the hands-on time. We can't handle more than we are doing, and I think there are a lot of people wasting a lot of time and money because they don't understand how the process works.
I agree completely.
Both routes of education and training are tough and valuable, but they are united by very little more than the words "aeroplane" and "engineering" - the skill sets are very different, and even the emphasis of the educational components of the apprenticeship/LAME course is very different to those of a degree.
Anybody coming to the end of the education phase of either route into engineering is looking at almost starting again to switch their career path into the other.
That said, people who have a good handle on both, are rare and valuable creatures.
G