My humble opinion and advice to the newbies is to get a degree in something other than aviation, and get all of your ratings on the side. What good is that aviation degree going to do you if something happens to you medically later in life? What if you get completely sick of flying all together, what are you going to do?

Do you think the people interviewing you really give a poo that you have an aviation degree?

There are a lot of what if's that could pull you out of the aviation industry, and it would be great to have something to fall back on. I have a degree in Business Management Information Systems with an emphasis on networking and database programming. If I loose an eye ball, I still have a job (Granted a shi*ty one). Did it hurt me in getting hired at an airline? Nope.