Hi,

I am a junior in High School and plan on going to Kent State. I know I want to go through their aviation program but I am not exactly sure which route to take.

Here are my options.

A.) Double Major in Flight Technology and Aviation Management, about 85% of the classes overlap!

B.) Major in Flight Technology and minor in Business Management. I could work on bachelors in Business Management while instructing at Kent if i don't get on with a regional out of college.

C.) Double Major in Flight Technology and Business Management. but I don't want to be overly stressed and have my G.P.A. suffer.

D.) Major in Business Management and Minor in Flight Technology. The Minor is just your licenses and a couple of aviation classes.

Which option do you think I should take? I'm leaning towards option A or B. because I believe the Aviation Degree could help me get jobs in other parts of the field if I medical out.

Thanks!!

 

Option D would be my vote, and most experienced professional pilots will tell you the same thing.

Aviation degrees of any sort are pretty much worthless in the real world (except engineering degrees).

Flight technology is completely useless, it's kind of like having a degree in welding...you will still get paid the same as any other welder, but if you cannot weld the degree will not help you get a job in any other field. It's basically a vocational certificate that checks the 4-year degree box for airlines.

Av. management could help you get a job in airport operations if that's what you want to do, but it is a poor backup degree because a lot of pilots have one and if times are tough you will competing with thousands of other unemployed pilots for whatever non-flying jobs are available. Business management combined with airline experience should make you eligible for many airport ops jobs...as well as a plethora of real-world jobs.

 

Then why not Option D?

 

Get a Teaching certificate. Always a job out there for a teacher. Recession proof. Aviation degrees for pilots are a gimmick.

 

For the most part, I agree with this. My advice is to major in something you're interested in outside of aviation. Preferably a field with high projected future demand.... just in case.

 

Major in something that will get you a job entirely outside of the aviation world. I did all of my flying on the side and it worked out pretty well.

 

Walk away from the degrees named "aviation science" or "professional pilot" or the like. They may help you as a pilot, but outside of aviation they are useless. You need something that can make you money if/when you're not flying.

 

Ooops, that's what I meant, option D. Corrected in original post.

 

I couldn't agree more with what the others have said. Aviation science degrees are worthless. Get a technical degree (engineering or computers) or get a real business degree (not aviation business management). Your resume will be better that way.

 

I'm not sure if Kent State offers it... but some colleges offer a MBA (or some other grad degree) while you are getting a B.A. or B.S., instead of double majoring if you were going to put in that much work.

Having said that, concentrating on flying while getting a technical degree (or even double majoring) is do-able but very, very hard. Technical Degrees are worth a good bit because they aren't easy. Much free time will be spent studying Dif Eq. and other weird stuff.