It doesn't matter what type of degree you have. If you think that a furloughee who has no other professional experience other than flying aircraft for the past 10 years of his/her life is going to go out and land a job as an engineer or computer programmer because of his/her engineering or computer science degree or any other job you can think of, you're nuts. Companies hire recent grads for entry level positions and with no professional experience in the field at 30-35 years old, you're up $hits Creek without a paddle. If you think starting your own business with your business degree is going to be a cake walk also, smell the coffee. The odds are against you because most small businesses fail (not to mention the fact you better have a huge chunk of money in the bank to start this business). If getting the cheapest degree you can to limit your debt before getting into this risky business is your goal, I can't argue with that.
100LL,
In my short 2 years as a CFI, I encountered quite a few "nut job" students who thought they knew what was best for them, but the fact of the matter was, they didn't have a clue and in a formal flight training program, you were there to learn and with time contraints with getting students done, YOU SHOWED UP WHEN PUT ON THE SCHEDULE. You registered for a "flight block", am I correct? Which meant from M-F between the hours of say, 1000-1400, you had 4 hours of which were game for flight training. The school "expects" you to fly on certain days because that's what YOU registered for! Being that I made my schedule a day and a half out, unless a student specifically told me that he/she couldn't fly that day because they had a project to work on, a big test in Humanities class, a sorority shin-dig to get drunk at (yes, I've seen it all), I put their butts on the schedule and if they didn't show, they were no-showed. It was my job to provide instruction and get them course complete. Beside that, I didn't get paid if I wasn't with a student, so if a student stiffed me, he/she would pay for it. There was a formal appeal process for misunderstandings or specific situations as cause for the no-show, but ERAU was not Joe Dirt's FBO where you came and went as you pleased. Did your professors across the street honor a no-show to their lessons without a good reason? Probably not. If you were sick, there was a school health department, correct? Aside from situations where you were in between office hours, you could have gotten grounded with a note from the school nurse. When I was there as a student, flight courses were graded -A, B, C... and 60% of your grade was from your ground school tests and FAA written and guess what; you had to get an A, B, or C to pass or you retook the ground school and weren't allowed to start flying until you did so. There were no D's and F's or this new Pass/Fail stuff. If you no-showed for no legitimate reason, you went down 1 letter grade. 3 of them and you were out, free to start the course again next semester (and yes, you had to take the whole ground school again). How's that for a no-show policy? The school has softened up quite a bit in the last 12 years or so. I know too well how it was to have a student who wanted days off for this and that and trying to be nice, I gave them off, later to have them bite me in the arse at the end of the semester when they wanted to go home for the summer and weren't done with the course. Who's arse was in my manager's office explaining why this person wasn't done? Me of course. I know ERAU was no military flight school, but I think that being the formal program that it is, there should be a little more discepline required.
Not saying your CFI was not a "nut job" because I think we were all nut jobs for doing that job for $12 an hour
