Not a Hater of them. I just view Aviation degrees as a means for exploiting wannabe flight students to SELECT an aviation college program to become a pilot.

I've heard the pitch. Airlines prefer aviation educated students, they know you are serious about your profession, they will select you over another of the same caliber if you have an aviation degree, you will be better prepared to tackle the world of aviation vs. another . . .

However, I will say, that a college education is important no matter what profession or career path you eventually choose

 

FUN to look at:

Offbeat majors help CEOs think outside the box

By Del Jones, USA TODAY

George W. Bush may be the first president with an MBA degree, but U.S. business is run by CEOs with a hodgepodge of degrees in everything from atmospheric physics to French literature.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, a medieval history and philosophy major (Stanford '76), says her curiosity about the transformation from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance folds neatly into the digital awakening she now must address.

"A century of sustained and enduring human achievement" long ago leaves her confident that "we have, in fact, seen nothing yet," Fiorina says.

Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner never took a single business course, getting a double major in English and theater (Denison '64), and he has nudged his three sons into liberal arts. He was reminded of a favorite English professor, Dominic Consolo, when reading the script for Dead Poets Society, a movie about a passionate poetry teacher starring Robin Williams. Eisner considers it to be one of the best movies Disney has made.

"Literature is unbelievably helpful, because no matter what business you are in, you are dealing with interpersonal relationships," Eisner says. "It gives you an appreciation of what makes people tick."

Ambitious college grads peddling offbeat degrees in a job market gone sour can take heart that such success stories are far from rare.

Just one-third of CEOs running the USA's largest 1,000 companies have a master's of business administration degree, according to executive search firm Spencer Stuart. Cisco's John Chambers added an MBA to his law degree, and Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay added a Ph.D. in economics to his MBA. But for every CEO who takes a businesslike approach, there are those who follow pure interests and trample practicality on the way to the top.

No one disputes that there is a place for the traditional MBA. Miramar Systems just hired a Harvard MBA for business development. But CEO Neal Rabin, who majored in creative writing (UCLA '80), says chief executives who learn at the knee of Harvard case studies know too many ways that companies fail. They find themselves paralyzed by fear, he says.

Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Computer, was a pre-med biology major at the University of Texas before dropping out after his freshman year.

"I took one course that was remotely related to business: macroeconomics," Dell says. "One of the things that really helped me is not approaching the world in a conventional sense. There are plenty of conventional thinkers out there."

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates also left college without earning a degree — Harvard's most famous dropout had been studying computer science. More typical, however, are executives who completed school but whose course of study now seems irrelevant.

These CEOs say their offbeat majors have been anything but irrelevant. Some say they still apply the knowledge learned in pursuing those degrees in making day-to-day business decisions. Others say the degrees helped launch their careers where economics, finance or business may have not.

Studying history and culture

Any good education would have been enough to get a foot in Corning's door 37 years ago, CEO John Loose says. But it's unlikely he would have been chosen for his first big international assignment without a degree in East Asian history (Earlham '64).

"To have an understanding of the history and culture of Koreans, Japanese, Indians and Chinese was invaluable," Loose says. Even today, Corning continues to court Asia as a rare bright spot in the depressed fiber-optic market.

Likewise Sue Kronick, now group president of Federated Department Stores, was an Asian studies major (Connecticut College '73). Her rise from a Bloomingdale's buyer was helped by understanding India's economic system so well that she found ways to slash the cost of imports.

"My background served me well," Kronick says. "You tend to get a more narrow in point of view as time marches on. Liberal arts is about approaching problems from a different point of view."

Michaela Rodeno, CEO of the French-owned St. Supery winery in California, had no idea how to put her French literature degree (University of California at Davis '68) to use until she moved with her husband to Napa Valley, where he set up a law practice.

French wineries happened to be venturing into the valley for the first time. Rodeno's fluency in the language would have been enough to land a job, but knowledge of "France's institutions, arts and letters" stunned French executives and put her on the fast track.

Small-college education

Unlike President Bush (MBA Harvard '75; B.A. history Yale '68), 87% of Fortune 300 CEOs did not attend an Ivy League school, according to Spencer Stuart's Route to the Top survey last year. Corning's Loose got his degree from Earlham College, a 1,200-student school founded by Quakers in Richmond, Ind. Denison University, attended by both Eisner and history major Terry Jones ('70), CEO of Travelocity.com, is a 2,100-student college in Granville, Ohio.

Eisner says he knew nothing of Denison. But he had gone to all-boys schools since kindergarten and was won over to co-ed Denison by a friend's brochure.

Offbeat routes to the top are not restricted to CEOs with liberal arts degrees. After earning a master's ('71) and Ph.D. ('73) in chemical engineering from Drexel University, Ramani Ayer accepted an entry-level job with Hartford Financial Services Group.

"My professors thought I was nuts," Ayer says. Today, he is Hartford's CEO.

"The mathematical ways of looking at the world are very transferable from engineering to insurance," Ayer says. Those who rise to the top know why things happen the way they do, he says. "Engineering is very good training for knowing why."

An industrial engineering degree (North Carolina State '71) eventually landed Gordon Harton, president of jean company Lee, in fashion. "I wouldn't be the person you'd want to select the hottest colors for next spring," he says. "And I can't remember using calculus in any marketing decisions."

Harton worked 15 years in operations, doing plant layout, scheduling and capacity planning, but he discovered he was more interested in marketing and fashion. Engineering teaches that the best solution is the most simple — a principle Lee applied when its marketers were quick to spot the trend for baggy fitting jeans simply by talking to boys who rode skateboards.

Upoc CEO Gordon Gould says his environmental studies degree (Pitzer College '92) has transferred easily to computer systems and helped him understand how a computer virus might spread. Upoc is a service that lets teens and young adults get tailored information and exchange messages on mobile phones and pagers.

Frank Moss, chairman of e-business company Bowstreet, was working with the Apollo space team while still earning a master's degree in astronautics (Princeton '71). He was getting his Ph.D. in aeronautics (MIT '76) when he became a pioneer in what is now known as the Internet.

"In the space program, you learned how to get things done quickly as a team," Moss says. "We solved things in 24 hours, sometimes in 24 minutes. There was a sense of urgency I brought to computers and software, where it's highly competitive."

The marriage of computers with biology is the next frontier, and business needs more bright leaders with backgrounds in history, philosophy and the like to sort out ethical questions about such issues as genetic patents and the cloning of a human being, Moss says.

"We need not just scientists who say what we can do, but people with broad intellectual and liberal arts backgrounds who say what we shouldn't do," Moss says.

Learning how to think

Blue Shield of California CEO Bruce Bodaken has a bachelor's (Colorado State '72) and a master's (Colorado '75) degree in philosophy and once taught an introduction to ethics course.

"Philosophy teaches you to ask deeper questions, how to think through a tough problem," Bodaken says.

High-tech companies are increasingly bringing on CEOs who know relatively little about technology. There are several reasons Uniscape CEO Steve Adams, who has a Ph.D. in 20th-century British literature (Florida State '82), quit a college teaching job at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. One was a 50% pay raise to become an entry-level technical writer.

Not long ago, "I thought a chip was something you had with dip," says Adams, who runs a company that helps global companies with Web sites that must reach out to a variety of languages and cultures.

Adams says he brings something fresh to the table, often quoting poetry to computer scientists and electrical engineers. One of his favorites comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

 

I cannot remember the exact statistics, but I think almost as many Fortune 500 CEO's have engineering degrees, not just MBA's. I want to say it was something like 30%.

How many Fortune 500 CEO's have aviation sciences (or whatever you get at ERAU, UND)? Probably none.

Go to a normal college that is right for you (where you want to live, not North Dakota), that is closer to 50/50 girl/guy ratio (not 85% guys like ERAU), somewhere you can have fun, and somewhere you can get a good education in something like business, engineering, or something else.

 

I'll walk soon enough. I'm just enjoying Champaign, tossing bags at night, going to class, and burning holes through the sky.

 

Illini:

I extend a challenge to you in a friendly game of bags. I love that game and play whenever I can. Im in Chicago all summer, so you can probably find me in the local beer gardens behind a set of boxes.

Exx

 

Ellen -
Back off the high horse a bit and stop bashing some of these schools (UND Erau). You can go to UND and get about any degree you can think of outside of aviation. And their MBA and Doctoral programs are top notch.

I had an absolute blast there, met some great friends, went to some great parties and got a great education (outside of aviation). Walked out with a degree and a job that started the next day. I wouldnt have had that opportunity if I had gone anywhere else.

And you said it yourself, these schools are a business too. They have to do what they can to keep their product going strong. They are not pointing a gun at anyone saying they have to go there or that they have to get a degree in aviation. at some point the consumer has to be responsible for their investment and extract all the info they can.

 

you can get the same job with or without an aviation degree. In my opinion it doesn't help you but if that's all you're interested in then do it but it doesn't leave you anything to fall back on. Sure you could go and get a job somewhere outside of aviation but you would make yourself a lot less marketable if you had only an aviation degree. Also in my opinion, there is a lot more fun to be had at a regular college and you get to know people in all different fields and these contacts may be valuable if you decide to do something on the side. Either way its all about preference but you can do this whole thing a lot cheaper if you avoid to pilot schools.

 

the above stats about CEO's with history degrees proves it doesnt matter what you get a degree in. Everyone on here always sayin get a degree in something else like business. Why?? All that matters is that you have a degree, if you enjoy aviation, then why not get a degree in that, it will make the classes a lot easier being that its material you actaully like studying.

 

Lol, Honestly don't think I've ever see someone put it that way. Very valid point though. I'm pursuing my AAS/Aviation not because I believe it's the only way to get a career flying, but because I find it to be a very interesting subject that I think will hold my interest for a couple of years. Honestly, I know there are a few majors out there that would interest me but not to the extent that Aviation does.

 

While I wasn't referring to those kinds of bags, I guess I would have to show you up if you made an appearance in Champaign. I throw bags for A/E which pays for my booze.