I could train a monkey to takeoff and land. I dont know though if I could teach him algebra, calculus, physics, or history even.

Pilot with a degree = professional

 

OK I agree with the professional part. But to quantify intelligence soley on traditional academic means is limited to say the least. Some folks are good at art or music or figuring out calculus etc. Some are good at takeoff's and landings, handling stress in an emergency etc.

Interesting point though I remember a wall street journal article I read awhile back insinuating (or insulting) we were all just a bunch of trained monkey's.

 

Hey professor, I am pretty sure you mean "moot point". Thank god you're qualified for that captain slot with your sheepskin in hand, I am feeling much safer now.

 

In the end, the grades speak for themselves. If you really did drink and party your way through school but somehow managed to get someone to take tests for you at the critical moments like Dan and others are suggesting sometimes happens, the transcripts are going to tell the tale. So telling everyone here that there is a majority of idiots with degrees that daddy paid for that work at the elite level in all aspects of American business just isn't true.

At some point in the college experience (at least in my experience) you have an epiphany if you've been acting like a screw off to straighten up and fly right. I bailed out of a Div 1 school for four years once my grades and my attitude in my early 20s started to sour. I finished my degree after putting myself in the military and it was the best experience I had going back to school, in love with learning, focused on completing what I started years before.

Honestly, most kids have no business being anywhere near a college campus at 19. I was one of them, BUT I was an athlete and had a "job" to do for the university. If I could do it all over again I would have spent at least four years in the military or the peace corps or some kind of volunteer service before heading to college as NOTHING motivates you like working with a bunch of total idiots day in and day out while in the lowest ranks of the enlisted division. Once again, not everyone was an idiot but those who have served know that a lot of folks aren't Rhodes Scholar material in the enlisted military.

Dan sounds very disgruntled. If he had taken the military or volunteer service route, he would have run to the nearest four year university and signed up when his commitment was over, completed his four years, and would gladly have taken any job that his degree prepared him for. He wouldn't be hating the spoiled rich kids with daddy's money. Who cares what they do with their lives anyways Dan. I'm only saying this because while you have some good points in your argument, it sounds like the whole A.A.S is an albatross around your neck. Some folks hear their parents' voices in their head about the degree thing. I felt an unnecessary pressure from my peers. I eventually piled the pressure on myself. I'm glad I did and finished my degree as an honor student.

So I have been in job interviews where my education has come up. In aviation it has been brought up more times than not. It has been said to me several times, "its refreshing to meet someone with a different degree, who is a communicator and has a different view." I always have something to talk about in my interview, the early years of college, the realization that I was being a screwup, the military and the return to finishing what I started. Its a good story to tell an HR rep. I can laugh at myself and the interview always goes well.

So if you are on the fence, get a degree for yourself in an area that YOU like. Whether its a degree in Acting or Aviation, make sure you do something that makes you well rounded. I fly with a lot of guys who live inside a one dimensional box because of their degrees. You need to get off the computer while you are in school and go out and meet a lot of women (or men), learn to socialize and develop a healthy self image and be empathetic of others. College taught me a lot about that. Take some "weird courses". Become diversified and college will be the greatest thing you have ever done.

 

good stuff, thanks for sharing.

 

You know, while many of us decide to get our degrees at a later date, I'm currently starting mine (actually to be correct Im returning to finish it), I think your blatent devaluation of the skillset that all professional pilots train for is just wrong. I agree that a college education is something to aspire to, but do you realize you basically just dismissed your fellow pilots as well as yourself as if we were all little more than trained monkeys...You have shown you are little different than many other pilots whos attitude is "I'm better than you because..(enter your choice here)"



I wonder would you have been able to create the sentence structure required to make such an assinine statement without your BS..., I was of course refering to your degree..what did you think I meant

 

TPROP.

Did your second comment not just commit the same offense as you claim he committed in your first comment? I'm not defending his comments but is it not hypocritical to point out someone's judging of individuals based on experiences, and then in the same post do the same in return? You would have held more credibility if you had defended the merits of training rather than tearing him down because you assume he has not flown 121. I'm just saying.

 

You may be partially correct, I probably should have left that part out. I only added it because according to his own profile hes only flown the 172 and Cirrus, when I saw that the monkey comment just got under my skin..
However your right my comments do make more sense without arguing his experiance, it is his comment I have a problem with not his experiance level. I have corrected it back to the way it was before I added that last little bit

 

Roger Tprop

 

Perhaps this will open your minds a little.


Is College a Scam? : Franchise Pick - Picking the Perfect Franchise

Check the comments when done reading also...

Is College a Scam?
July 6, 2007 by Sean Kelly
Filed under x General
24 Comments
(FranchisePick.Com) My post Wise Up! Skip College. Buy a Franchise! provoked some strong reactions, most notably from those whose meager livelihood depends on the perpetuation of the myth of the college diploma as a good investment. Few scam victims are willing to come forward, so the myth goes on.
Benjamin Welch wrote an earnest, though misguided, response to my post called College Degrees: What’s Their Real Value? Since Ben “has been a college instructor in writing and composition for nearly six years,” he knows the myth better than anyone. Ben, I was a “college instructor in writing and composition” too. I was teaching 130 students during the week and playing drinking songs at an Irish pub Fridays & Saturday nights. Guess which job payed more?
Ben claims “any pundits who claim, sarcastically or not, that a college just isn’t worth the trouble or the money, are in error.” He uses two common fallacies to support this contention: that “some people have succeeded without degrees, but they belong to a small minority,” and that those with college degrees earn more than a million extra bucks because of their magic diplomas.
A small minority of successful people lack college degrees? Who’s been “smoking doobies down by the river” Ben? In 2003, the percentage of Forbes 400 members without college degrees was 33%. That’s a small minority? The average net worth of a Forbes 400 member without college degree: $2.27 billion. With a degree: $2.13 billion.
But the real sleight-of-hand parlor trick is the statement that those with college diplomas earn “$30,000 more annually than someone with only a high school diploma. Over the course of a working lifetime, that’s more than million dollars.”
Hmmm… If the average income of Beluga caviar consumers is $500K annually, does that mean that if I eat whale eggs weekly I’ll earn $500K? Where’s proof of cause and effect? College-goers are more likely to be white, privileged, better-educated and probably (as a group) smarter than those who don’t go to college. They’d be no less white, privileged, better-educated and probably (as a group) smarter without their degrees. Can diploma apologists contend, with a straight face, that people like Warren Buffett, Ralph Lauren, Steven Spielberg, Donald Trump, Oprah, and Martha Stewart would not have achieved their success without their degrees?
To correct Mr. Welch’s well-crafted, but misguided, conclusion: ”In the final analysis, the grounds for [defending] the worth of a college degree are based either on poor math or logical fallacies — two errors, ironically, that a college education is supposed to correct.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK? IS A COLLEGE DEGREE NECESSARY FOR SUCCESS? ISN’T A FRANCHISE A BETTER INVESTMENT?