Advice please
 

I currently am a student at Jacksonville University. I am a freshman and I am studying to be a pilot. After seeing this semesters bill, I thought can I really keep doing this. I am a native to PA and beaver county was in my options of school.

I am thinking about transferring and I wanted the opinion of some professionals other than people who work here. I know both schools are accredited I just do not know what I should do, professionally.

thanks for the help

I'm not sure I understand your question. But there is no reason to spend extra money for a named school. Even a degree in aviation is less than ideal, if you ask me. A 4 year degree, however, is nearly a must if you want to compete for the best jobs in the biz.

The best way to use APC is to ask for advice on fairly specific topics. When you have an idea what the choices you are facing are, come back and pose detailed questions so the pilots can answer them. I suggest you read a lot more on APC about how to become a professional pilot first. Almost every standard topic or question related to becoming a career pilot has been addressed here at some time or other and APC is useful for gathering opinions from working professionals. If you are worried about financing your aviation training there are lots of discussions here about that, and if you are deciding what major is best there are a ton of informed opinions on that topic as well.

What are you majoring in now? Have you begun flight training yet? What certificates do you have? What schools appeal to you and why? Do you really like flying? Fill us in on your details a little bit first and then a lot of users will want to help you.

I think this is what you are looking for
 

The least expensive way to do it is 1. Go to an In-State school where you can live at home and study something other than aviation and pay as you go (unless you have a full ride scholarship somewhere else). 2. Get your flight training at a local airport and pay as you go. 3. Find a job to build time (CFI only if you actually like to teach).

I would seriously consider a different career path. Becoming a pilot has almost the worst return on investment anymore. If you want to stay in aviation, consider becoming an air traffic controller. Beaver is known to have one of the best schools for that, and if you like to fly, become a pilot on the side and fly on the weekends. Out of all the pilots that I've met throughout aviation, I would say about 95% of them would've pursued a different career field if they knew how poorly this occupation has become. Even at that a lot guys I know that are in the airlines/corporate world now are still looking to get out.

Most of us with any industry experience would agree wholeheartedly with this. You are going to be poor for a long time...do not start out with any more debt burden than necessary, zero would be ideal.

thanks all so much so far.


to be more specific. I am going to finish up here at the end of spring semester with my instrument rating. I have started and I am over half way done with it. I have talked to a lot of people and gotten a lot of advice. A lot of very different advice. Right now I am an Aviation management major with flight operations....basically JU's major for people who want to be commercial pilots. At this school I am stuck in that major. Which is basically keeping you in Aviation no matter what. Which can be very up and down as i have so learned. I absolutely love to fly. However I want to have something to fall back on in a rough economy. However I have also heard a lot of things dealing with House resolution 3371. I have heard talk that there may be different things going on with the lobbying of the bill, especially towards part 141 schools and accredited universities. I am not sure what any of y'all have heard or think, but I want to put myself in a better spot in that regard as well as having a better backup plan. I want to be an airline pilot but I know there are many ways to do it. I can go home to PA to a state school and pay a lot less for school and save much needed money. However I wont develop the connections, or have the internship opportunities that are available here. I know there are a million different ways of doing it I just am unsure of which one is better to become a professional aviator.

The best way to do it is the cheapest way to do it. YOU make it what it is. There is no amount of money that you can spend to get significantly superior training. It's you that has to be the best "learner" that you can be. Don't worry about finding the best teacher. If you really want to learn it, you'll do fine. One of the first things they teach you as a CFI is that you cannot literally "pour" information into a student's head. They must posses the desire to learn in order for the learning process to take place. That's why most CFI's are so burned out. Because they spend most of their time generating that spark to initiate the desire to learn.

Again, there is no amount of money that is worth all of the networking and internship possibilities. You can seek this for FREE all by your self.

Lesson learned today: Cheapest = Bestest.............handsdown!

Good start by coming to APC though.

The Community College of Beaver County has a great program. If you are a PA resident you get a 40 percent discount on aircraft rental. I work for ACES Aviation. We utilize newer Diamond Aircraft. We are one of the flight training providers for CCBC.

The Community College of Beaver County has a great program. If you are a PA resident you get a 40 percent discount on aircraft rental. I work for ACES Aviation. We are one of the flight training providers for CCBC.

In-state tuition is a huge perk. Take advantage of that if you can. No one cares if you went to school and got a degree at ITT Tech or Embry Riddle. Get the degree and get the check mark with the least amount of debt and most amount of opportunities.