encryptedmaniac

Hi, I am 18 years old and I go to a community college right now in Florida, I am from Pakistan and born in Pakistan, but I have American citizenship since I was 10 years old and there is almost nothing Pakistani about me I am just like any other teenager out here in America, and I have an obsession with flying since childhood I love RC airplanes, and I used to play flight simulator when I was little but its been 5 years I've grown out of it and I am pursuing a computer career because I am a genius at computer.

But recently, I have become torn apart in becoming a pilot or a computer engineer, I love the idea of being around airports, hotels, and different parts of the worlds meeting different people ( I may have gotten the wrong perception of the life of a commercial airline pilot, if that is so correct me ), I also love aviation and I think I will do great if I pursued it but a major reason I would go into this career is for money, I am also very ambitious in terms of wealth, but I wonder if me being a Pakistani will cause problems or simply make it impossible for me to get into some good airline.

I would greatly appreciate any sort of advice for my dilemma and ambiguity...

Dog Breath

Welcome to the forums. Here's some good reading to get you started.

Considering a career as an airline pilot? Read this

I'm sure you'll get plenty of opinions.

FighterHayabusa

You will build wealth MUCH faster as a computer engineer. As a pilot, starting from 0 hours and not taking the military route, it can take 5 - 7 years in a good economy to get to the point where you make the same money as your first engineering job. That's a lot of time for the engineer's money to accumulate and compound while the pilot might just be eking out a positive net worth from the 10s of thousands in loans.

In the end, if you aren't a saver or investor, a very senior pilot beats a very senior engineer in salary. Pilot's salaries are trending down though, and there's the pressure of a line of 1000 people willing to do your job for less money in a field where management does not put any value on experience except to help weed out resumes.

It's a better idea to get rich FIRST and THEN be a pilot.

cargo hopeful

What he said. And also don’t be a pilot if money is your ultimate driving force; otherwise you stand a very good chance of being disappointed. If you stay in long enough and get lucky in avoiding furloughs, you will top out in the six figure range, but if you can’t be happy making around 70-90k a year, look for something else. Good luck.

__________________
There’s only so much fortune a man needs, the rest is just for showing off.

jknightcfi

Between training and college I have been going down this road for 9 years. You have to love it for more reasons than the money. Me personally, ever time I am in the air I think about how bad it would be to be in an office somewhere inside a building working 9-5 everyday. It can be a very long and difficult road until you get your first job flying that actually allows you to pay rent without anyones help. Think long and hard about why you really want to do this.

Goodluck man.