awesomesauce17

thanks again for all this advice really good stuff here. i submitted an application to und about 2 weeks ago, after i realized how short i was on cash after financial aid. i didnt know the cost of living was cheap there, heck that wouldve been my first choice then. one of the reasons behind going to florida tech is that i have a friend's family down there that i would live with, so i wouldnt pay housing or food after first year. ill look into und's cost of living though. thanks for the suggestion. please keep advice/life stories coming this is all great stuff. another angle is always great to look at thanks.

BURflyer

Well, not all drop out the first year many drop after 2 or 3rd year. If you don't belive me buy those college guides that show the info on all the colleges and you will see the section about drop-out rates and most are high. As far as changin majors, maybe it doesn't happen much at UND aviation, I'm guessing for you aviation guys changing majors is not an option right? After all the money you have spent. That's one of the down sides of aviation colleges.

freezingflyboy

To be fair, UND is NOT an aviation college. It is a normal liberal arts college which happens to have one of the best aviation departments in the country. So if you get done with your PPL and decide you don't like aviation, go switch to theatre arts or communications or something (more than a few people do). I know of a lot of people who start out majoring in Commercial Aviation, which takes you from PPL through CFII, and then decide they want to stop at comm multi inst so they switch to Aviation Management.

Wouldn't it be hard to meet someone at college if they had dropped out? I have been at UND for almost 6 years now and I have known several people who have changed majors, added majors and minors and left all together. It is fairly common no matter where you go for people in college to change majors. Except for us idiots getting into aviation because its all we've ever wanted to do, most people don't have a clue about what they want to do when they start college.

JMT21

What I guess I should have said is that I've never known anyone who has dropped out all together; no one here or any of my high school friends back at home. I know it happens, I just don't think its that common. Completely agree with everything else, well put.

awesomesauce17

hey jmt21, wats ur sn? i have a few questions about und. if anybody else knows please share the info . . .

1) what kind of planes do you guys fly
2) is it possible to take aviation management, flight together(all the way to CFII)?
3) what is the work load like there? how many hours per night should i get ready to invest?
4) internships and career services - is it any good over there, and what do they offer?
5) what fun toys do you guys have that put yall ahead of everybody else?
6) how hard is it to get on the flight team? what does that require?

thanks!

aspiring_pilot

try selling drugs. you can make a quick buck that way.

JMT21

1) UND flys primarily Warriors, Arrows, and Seminoles. They also have a Baron, a cub, a couple decathlons, a couple of Bells, Several Schweizers, and 4-5 Cirrus SR-20's with several more on the way. I believe our total fleet is around 80 aircraft.

2) I'm a commercial aviation and aviation management major. With aviation management you earn your commercial, instrument, and multi. You can take CFI and CFII as electives, many people do this. This link will break down all the aviation majors. http://www.avit.und.edu/f2_Programs/...uate/index.php

3) The load isn't to bad. Some nights it's nothing, others it's several hours. I'm pretty good at putting things off till the last minute though. It's really different for everyone, I have never found it to be too much.

4) Career Services isn't too bad. They put everything up on their website, I have always found them to be pretty helpful. Many of the regionals will lower their mins for UND grads which helps a lot. I know of people who have done internships at AOPA, NTSB, JetBlue, Northwest, American, Air Wisconsin, ASA, Phoenix-Sky Harbor, several different local corporate flight ops, and there is probably more.

5) We have an altitude chamber where you'll have the opportunity to experience hypoxia and a rapid decompression. UND also has 12 aircraft simulators-6 warrior sims, 5 seminole sims, and a CRJ sim. In addition, we have a 360 degree ATC tower sim and brand new ATC lab (scopes). The ATC thing is pretty sweet, it's like real life-tower will clear a plane for take off, hand them off the departure, and then departure hands them off the center (and vise-versa). The plane is tracked the entire time by student controllers through the simulators, with a psuedo pilot on the other end.

6) I'm not a member of the flying team, so I won't be a great deal of help for you. I believe anyone can join the flying team, I don't believe there are any requirements, just be an aviation student. It sounds like you start off doing non flying stuff then move up to a flying spot.

http://flightops.aero.und.edu/airplanes/ This website is pretty good, check out the indivigual links towards the top of it. http://flightops.aero.und.edu/facts/faq.asp#14 this one is a FAQ link. Hope this helps, if you think of anything else, feel free to ask.

bla bla bla

My 2 cents.
Dont pay more than 50k for your traning.

Universitys allow you to get government sub loans, allowing you to consolidate. (Im at 1.5% interest, locked in), the down side you have to major in aviation. Also it is a bit slower, because they will only give you x-ammount per semester, so sometimes you have to delay traning for fundage.
Talk to grads of the program get their opinion on the school.

Its all who you know! let me repeat that, Its all who you know!! If you can find an examiner who is a cheif pilot for a regional or check airman do all your checkrides with them. Make sure your are prepared and do your best to not only pass your ride, but impress them. This will say much more than the school you go to.

Universtiys are fun, lots of horny chicks. I talked to guys who went to riddle, and it was a sausage fest. (ie. guy to girl ratio sucks)

Weather is also important, sunshine is good, speeds things up.

Another route, get your private/instrument, then study your a$$ off and go for the Air national guard. Check out their web page. No getting suck in iraq.

Have fun

crewdawg52

Awesomesauce17,

Look to the military. They pay for your flight training. I would advise if you go that route that you go ahead and get your privates.

I went through ROTC, got a pilot slot, and the USAF paid for 13 hrs in a C-152(that's all the time I had. had my first plane flight when I was 17... on SWA) So, when I walked through the gate at Reese AFB, Tx, I had no idea what I was doing. But 51 weeks later, I walked out with USAF pilot wings.

ctd57

One way to skip ROTC is by going the OCS route. A couple Navy buds of mine had their college assisted for by the Navy doing a program called BDCP(I think that is what it is called) We called them program guys. I don't know the exact details of the program, you would have to look into it. You attend OCS after college and earn the rank of ensign. If you have been accepted for a pilot spot, you will start pilot training after OCS. The only drawback is that if you washout of pilot training, I think that you owe the Navy 4 years because of the money they gave for college.