Don't heed the advise of those sat comfortably in the front right seat; resplendant in their gold bars. They just don't want you to join in.... far better that you get a job dropping parachutes at the local grass strip!
It's the funny thing about PPRuNe. When you start here you live in the wannabes forum. Then you get a gig and you leave and barely ever come back. It's been a few years since I ventured in here.
It doesn't lessen the shock of reading a comment like that though.
When I started my training I did so with the guarantee of at least a job interview with an airline through the old mates network. Starting flight training without a hand up waiting at the other end seemed like financial suicide. I witnessed many throw themselves off that financial precipice time and time again and alter the course of their life in some case probably irretrievably. Then they decided to pile up some more debt in one last desperate roll of the dice to try and recover it all.
Some of you are very young as was I when I set out on my career. That's not condescending, it's just a fact. With that often comes a total lack of understanding how long it takes to pay off the sums of money involved. €40-50K just for a P2F scheme, it's really hard to understand the grinding monthly debt and the length of time it takes to pay that off.
You talk about teaching from a pulpit of sand. It's true that I pad for my rating on the 737 but that was for a permanent contract of employment and after a year online quite a decent salary. You guys will be turfed back out at the end of your line training, of dubious, dubious quality. A low houred F/O. Ten a penny, common as muck. Competing with Malev and Spanair guys with 5 figure total times in their logbooks.
Please don't do it.
It's not because we don't want you to join some cosy club, it's because I don't want you to piss your life away and live a never ending grind of crippling monthly payments.