Hey all - I'd just like to quickly say that not every newbie's attitude to an aviation career is what has been mentioned in the linked thread - working for nothing and trained to 'minimal' standards. There are a number of people like myself who go through a very reputable university where we are pretty much taught to be well-rounders - For example, Human Factors, engineering, risk management, economics, marketing, etc...
Some of our lecturers have a great breath of experience in the aviation industry spanning decades, some of them pilots and some from the management side of things.
While Automation has surely taken a toll on the opinions of people, industry included, I think that the amount of work / experience / expertise required is the same, if not greater.. It's really just part of the "changing nature of work".
As a newbie aspiring to *hopefully* get to the airlines one day, I certainly hope that there will be a job out there for me that i will love, with the respect that people give you as an acknowledgement of your hard work and certainly enough money to live on (because like it or not, the needs of our modern society cannot be met without it).
As mentioned on the now closed thread, there is a broad cross-section of the aviation community on this site, perhaps one of them would be kind enough to set up a thread where they may feel like sharing some of that knowledge ..
Anyway - just my 2c ... if anyone disagrees - try to be civil about the reply ... just not liking the way most of the posts on PPRuNe tend to disintegrate into mud-slinging matches
