This company is run by ar*****es!!!!

Idiots in suits living in offices and surrounded by the most pathetic life form that is your YES MAN.

Second only to the management, actually just as bad are the union!

There is no excuse for the poor standard of trainee that the units are getting. Its not their faullt but something has to be done about it. You have to spend money to get the best and NATS dont do that.
Its about moving aircraft as safely and as efficently as we can. To do that we need the right equipment and staff.

Its not rocket science.

Hey, that's not a bad posting! Cheap booze and fags, plenty of sunshine. Just remember to close the road before you clear them to land and you'll be fine :)


LXGB

You might want to think twice about getting a job, the workoad can be quite high especially around oral board time and I think it is also important to have some rest time inbetween college days. I would not have wanted to go to work in the middle of summatives!

i dont want to but a dampener on things but failure IS an option and a very real one. Before I got to college I thought that it would be fairly straight forward to get through and I took a big pay cut and borrowed money so that I could go. When we all got there we soon realised that the chop rate is a lot higher than HR tell you during recruitment. I got all the way to unit training and failed. Now I have massive debts and have used up a couple of years potential income. I had a great experience along the way and don't really regret applying (I would have regretted NOT applying a lot more) but you must think of all outcomes.

I would definitely agree with Quincy:

Obviously everyone has their own situation and circumstance, but genuinely if you take on a second job whilst at the college you will put yourself at a disadvantage when it comes to studying/passing. The college is comprised of intense courses with no room for falling behind, and the failure rate can be quite high, and sometimes unfortunately unfair.

You really want to get in there and have the best possible chance of getting through, which means dedicating time to study outside of college, and also time to rest and relax. The course I was on had a whole mix of people with varying backgrounds and financial ties such as mortgages, families and the like - but no-one needed/had time to take a second job.

Apologies if this sounds like a rant or something, just so you have a clear idea of whats ahead of you :ok:

Best of luck

Adrian

p.s. I wouldn't have minded LXGB :) not saying its a bad place at all. Just that getting a posting there is usually a tad unlikely...

I agree with Quincy

Failure is an option - maybe not to you but circumstances can overcome your outlook.

What happens if you get ill, the fiance leaves (not saying it will happen!), you don't get trained - you only get trained in summer!!!!

you get a watch change, you get a unit change (not that you are by any means guaranteed that either)

etc etc etc

you get posted to Swanwick, tried the rents about here???

16k when you leave the college (IF you pass), won't get you that far.

REALITY IS A KILLER

Unfortunately studying and being great at exams isn't the key to getting through ATC training you actually require aptitude and no amount of hard work can create that if it isn't already there.
Also you will have little time for family , fiancé's etc whilst studying so I would say to anyone if you don't have to bring family with you don't it isn't necessarily conducive to the way college studying is best carried out.
It was a long while since I went through but as Yahoo said some of the best studying was done in groups and is why communal living can be an asset. We worked hard and played hard.

One of the reason why other colleges may get a higher pass rate could be because Ex Military controllers are going through them so they have prior experience?

I don't know about that. I left my fiancee back home and found that this only made things harder especially as I would travel home every weekend to see her. On the odd occasion when she visited me I found it to be a happier time and more relaxing to have her around.

Also it is not necessary to study in groups, even though the college kept banging on about how it was. I never studied in groups (nor did i live with other TATCs) other than the odd study session (whilst at college during the working day) before oral boards and you could also get the missus to test you.

Like you say, being great at exams is not the key :ok:

group studying works for some, and doesn't for others.

my friend simfly studied together with his whole approach course in preparation for oral boards and passed brilliantly !

also, i'd suggest to watch for those who try to give you advice and then put you down, you useless idiot ! ;)

erm, I hope yer nae sayin i wiz puttin ya dooon ivor????!

But I agree, oral board study is much better in a group, don't think I could have it done it alone!

hmm

aerodrome oral boards: college on a saturday afternoon followed by substantial alcohol on sat evening. solid plan in my opinion... what say you simfly? :E did that work on approach?

almost AJ7, on approach I went for the all day college session on the Sunday, the whole course again was in attendance, unlike our aerodrome where 1 was constantly missing- (hope he finds another job soon :D) and the many rounds after were cheap :E Just a shame my aerodrome license is useless now :{ Where is angular?

Sorry to intrude, I am not sure if this is important enough to start a new thread ..:)
Any failed trainees here? Being one myself, unfortunately, (not NATS, but still) I would like to know why other people failed, or why they think they failed. Also, would you try it again, if allowed to?

start a new thread anyway, if people dont deem it important enough then they wont reply :}

if i did fail then i think i would have to give it another shot if i was able, but luckily i havent had to go through that yet.

sim, 'angular' is in the dictionary somewhere after 'anglia', which happens to be a model of car and also a region of the UK. apparently also a region of radar provided at EGPD. know anything about this?? :suspect:

all day sunday... you heathen. it is a desolate place at weekends :mad: