Uncle Bose

That's the problem. The flight training is fine, but in order to fly there you need to be a student, paying four times more for a degree than you would at a state school. Most who fly there are earning the idiot aero sci degree, which is good for nothing more than checking a box on a job application.

CaptainMark

well here is an interesting tidbit..good friend and ERAU classmate of mine with a 91 aero sci degree went and got an mba at fordam...he then applied at credit leinais for an invester job...during the interview found out the ceo was a pilot...he ended up getting the job because he was sitting around a table full of harvard types(group interview) talking airplanes and ERAU with the ceo...that led to him being hired as a VP at morgan stanley and is now a 37 yr old who is bringing in 2.25 mill/yr...maybe i should have gotten an aero sci degree...

Uncle Bose

Yeah, I'll bet the business world has more than a few ex-aero sci types who corrected their mistake in getting a useless degree.

NE_Pilot

Every degree is useless if it is in something that does not interest you. Like I, and many others, have said, other degrees provide very little to fall back on, rare cases (I believe rickair was one), probably similar to this case of getting the job.

Further, a degree becomes useless when you do not use it. Companies are not looking for engineers 5-10 years out of school who did not working in engineering for those 5-10 years, they have better options.

Get a degree in something you like, and in something you will enjoy and do well in. Most places, in and out of the airlines, just want to see a degree from a 4-year college (does not matter what college). If they do want a certain degree, it is usually with a masters, or work experience, or right out of college, NOT 5-10 years down with the majority of work experience being flying an airplane.

Uncle Bose

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

Further, blah, blah, blah.

Go ahead and get a degree in something that interests you. Just don't pay $101K for it! Is that not reasonable? There's got to be something that interests you that doesn't require private or nonresident tuition.

ImperialxRat

Riddle has the 3 no-shows and your out policy. My freshman year, starting my PPL I was on the waiting list for an instructor for 2 months. I went home for thanksgiving, which magically was when I was given an instructor.

Come back after Thanksgiving break to 3 no-shows. I appealed of course. Apparently my instructor left me a message on the dorm phone, and I was expected to make all 3 activities. They wanted to fail me and have me restart next semester. I said it was rediculous that if I miss the first activity, to expect me to show up to the other two...obviously something is wrong. Not to mention I put my cell phone number on my availability form. That instructor was notorious for trying to get people no-showed because it was a quick way to get paid for 1.3 hours without having to work.

Was a horrible way to begin my flying career, and after alot of fighting with flight sups and etc etc, they dropped it down to one no-show. That same instructor was constantly making me re-do activities, even when I knew the material. "Lets just go do it again to make sure you know it". Um, but I just did it satisfactory. The same guy who would throw a 0.7 oral time on there when we literally briefed for 10min, and debriefed for 10min.

After getting smart I went to the flight sup and asked for a new instructor. And then had to randomly and awkwardly bump into that guy around the flight line for the following 2 years.

Heh. Good times.

I ended up no-showing out of the course later on though, and it is a permanent 6 credit F on my transcript which sucks. Every other academic class that you fail, when you retake it, the grade is replaced with your new grade. Not so with flight training academics at ERAU.

POPA

Your parents spend all that money on your education - for something you're supposedly interested in - and you can't be bothered to show up?

NE_Pilot

Definately, all I am saying is to find a major that you find interesting and pursue it. Don't major in something because you think it will be a good backup, because chances are it won't matter. State School's have excellent programs, with a large variety and should be be fully taken advantage of for all they have to offer, and the inexpensive tuition (for the most part).

What I was saying was by no means an arguement for "breaking the bank" getting a degree, it was an arguement for going to college and doing things that you are interested in, because a vast majority of jobs require just a 4-year degree.

sargeanb

Admittedly, I was once a "Kool Aid" drinker as well...we had several bridge programs at the time I started here (99), and students actually were getting hired with regionals right after graduation with minimal time. I didn't have a clue about the cyclical nature of the industry...all I knew was flying looked like a fun way to make a living, I'd always been interested in it, and at the time, it looked secure (AGAIN...little did I know). Now as an business student(for free due to the full time tuition waiver)...I kind of see why we have the high tuition rates. This is a private university, and all of that new equipment and new buildings have to come from somewhere. I've gone from the student side to the employee side, and I know our instructors probably have the best CFI jobs in the country, in terms of pay and benefits.

I agree that the aero sci degree does not have many uses...you can basically fly professionally and that's about it. However, what I have discovered since I began the MBA is the wealth of other jobs in aviation that are out there, management, consulting, maintenance, airports, etc. I've worked with several professors here to update some of the FAA texts to include glass equipment, and to develop a standard training syllabus for glass training for the FITS program. There are hundreds of research programs going on here at any time, and if students look around a bit they can take advantage of this. Several airport execs, United, Delta, and Continental all came here last week to interview our MBA students for internships, and a LOT of our instructor corps has been hired lately (of the 60 in my hire class, about 3 of us are still here), so I can say that career services is treating us pretty well. I still want to fly professionally, but upon graduation from aero sci and once hired here it's easy to get into the other Masters degree programs, for free, for "fall back" jobs if things get bad again. There is more to going here than JUST Aero sci...it's just a matter of making the most of all that tuition money we spent. (Braces for Uncle Bose' response)

87iroc&amullet

Do they waiver as many classes as you want to take?