Originally Posted by
Airsupport
see. these kind of comments show how little people know about student debt for people in other professions. med school will cost you around 250k. your first year out of med school you will make about 15 dollars an hour, or around 30k a year. your stubent loan payment which is now due will be near 2000 bucks a month. after going through residency for 4 years making just over 30k for your entire stent you finally get to venture out. so lets do the math shall we. 4 years of college plus 4 years of med school plus 4 years of residency plus 2 years of specialization. hmm in 14 years you will start to finally see the rewards of the career you have chosen.
not saying its not worth it, but people on this side of the fence have no idea how it works so they say stuff like this. the rate of divorce amongst doctors during residency is about 60 percent at the school i was going to attend. they pretty much told us if we weren't married coming in to not do it till we are done. the hardships of being away from home, making little to no money, and student loan payments that are more than you bring in are just to much for some families.
oh and did i mention that pilots like to whine and complain. i think it is in our blood.
so lets do the math shall we. 4 years of college plus 4 years of med school plus 4 years of residency plus 2 years of specialization. hmm in 14 years you will start to finally see the rewards of the career you have chosen.
I'm not sure why you picked a doctor as your example. Here is some
realistic math for you, and I say realistic because I personally know the person in the example I'm about to give.
A friend of mine spent 8 years in school, 4 undergrad and 4 in medical school, and 6 years of residency to become a neurosurgeon. Total time: 14 years. Yes, pay through residency wasn't great, but then again residency is still required to become a physician. He was offered a job and accepted it with a practice already established. Starting salary? Just over one million dollars a year.
Assuming his college only cost him $250K, and I suspect it was a lot lower then, his first year pay will more than pay for all of that college.
Now let's look at aviation. The whole point isn't to compare student debt in aviation to student debt in other professions. The whole point is to look at the cost of becoming a pilot versus your prospects of landing a decent job and the
realistic salaries one can expect. And the fact of the matter is that you are guaranteed to spend a lot of money chasing a profession that will not pay you very much in return.
What cracks me up on these threads is how everyone says you must "follow your dreams" because this "beats working in an office". But you look at another thread and everyone who "loves living the dream" is comparing notes on how to make tomato soup out of catsup packets because they can't afford to eat on a layover.
hmm in 14 years you will start to finally see the rewards of the career you have chosen.
A person takes their very first flight lesson today. 14 years from now what kind of
realistic pay and QOL can they expect? Where in this profession do you see yourself 14 years from the date of
your first flight lesson?
It's not that I am intentionally being negative, it's that there isn't much positive left in this industry to make the risk of entering it worth the time and money. The "dream" is only one aspect of this career, but to be fair you must lay all the cards on the table - the good, the bad, and the ugly.