Originally Posted by marlonmoneda1

Not very many places I know where in four years you have enough time to get your ratings (going about three times a week starting at private, without very much opportunity to do much more because flight slots are soo packed plus shortage of instructors especially these days), go to 17-19 credits worth of classes to get your degree in four years, work 30-40 hours a week to make enough money to survive on, and compete for the very small amount of corporate, or internship style flying gigs to build hours (we only have like 5 or 6 spots avail for 200+ person program per year, all for almost no pay) all at the same time...you need monetary support to not have to work in order to have the time to get all those ratings done that quickly...which I never had...plus the extra money available to pull out of loans to be able to fly extra during the summer (most places have an annual limit, which you push rather easily when you go to a private school and pay for all flight training without any help) Most people I know that got ahead like that were fortunate enough to have either relatively well off parents, a parent that already was an professional pilot (for connections or starting flight training at a much younger age), a parent who bought them a plane or already owned one, or parents focused on doing their best to help pay for college or living expenses during summers so they could get ahead.

All of that is fine of course, but most people dont have such luxuries unfortunatlely...its just the reality that there just simply isnt enough time, money, good weather, or luck to get all your ratings, 1000 more hours, a four year degree, corporate experience, pay car insurance, rent, utilities, food money, beer money, girlfriend date money, strip club money, frat events, practice music, play shows in a band, pay for doctor bills, cell phone bills, travel across country occasionally to be able to go back home to california at least once a year if that, pay for gas, pay for new auto transmission because mine went out, pay for furniture, dishes, moving to a new apartment, buy winter clothes, school supplies, 800 dollars of books a semester, pay for city fine because you didnt have enough time to shovel the snow off your sidewalk everytime it snowed, birthday gifts, christmas gifts, snow tires, etc etc etc....well, you get the picture

Besides, what am I complaining about anyway? im 24 at a regional, I guess it worked out just fine...lol

So many different roads to the same thing!