Hello all, I'm currently a pre dental student on the path of Dentistry. While I love dentistry, I really love flying. It looks like given the new contracts at the airlines, it has raised the pay for pilots and pilots are in much better financial condition. Meanwhile, in dentistry, it takes alot of debt and years to be financially well. Wages have been stagnant in dentistry. The stability in dentistry is the only thing I can think of being better than airline piloting. But money, Qol, length of training, is better in airline piloting. Any advice would be greatly appreciated .

Yeah... stay focused. Get the DDS Sheep Skin. Get your ratings while practicing dentistry. Take from there.

You mention QOL is better in aviation? I'm curious why you think that? You will not be home every night, off holidays and likely weekends, and won't know your schedule for the next month until 2 weeks out (typically).

I do not know much about the required schooling, training and debt to become a dentist, and $100k of debt for flight training might seem like a better deal to one in your position. But try sitting down and mapping out a path to profitability as a dentist versus a pilot. It can take a decade to finally be at a major airline long enough to start making a hefty income. Meanwhile, every two steps up that QOL ladder will usually require a step back. Example of a typical path could be, CFI, regional FO, regional CA, legacy nb FO, legacy wb FO, legacy nb CA, legacy wb CA. Each advancement brings higher pay but can also start you back at the bottom of a particular seniority list.

Dental school tuition and set up costs are huge.

$400k isn't unusual just for the sheepskin https://dental.washington.edu/studen...ojected-costs/

Dental office startup costs can EASILY bring the total over $1 million. https://howtoopenadentaloffice.com/2...tart-up-costs/


And of course, that's AFTER you have your four year college degree to get you into your four year dental school.



So are you ACTUALLY recommending someone make a $500k to $1:25 MILLION dollar investment that they will then not use? And just how much "spare time" do you think people have in a dental curriculum? Or that they can afford to devote to getting their hours after "the sheepskin" in the face of combined college and dental school debt?

Now I'm not knocking dentistry - it's a necessary profession - but if he really wants to fly planes as a profession dentistry is a damn expensive side gig.

With these being very divergent career fields, you really have to ask yourself what is the incentive/drive behind committing to either one - family history, etc? I saw your post in the salary thread. Def don't make a decision based on assumed earnings in aviation.

Personally, I'd rather dig ditches for a living than look in peoples' nasty mouths all day, but I'm sure there are some that think the same about transiting airports and sitting in a plane for decades.

At the end of the day, decisions are never final and you'll always be able shift trajectories in the future with more time, money, and effort.

My post never suggested, "Stay away from the Airlines". Many of us have established businesses whilst on the path of achieving our ultimate goals. The thought of furlough is not the only concern, based on the history of the airline industry. The thought of one day the AME says "You don't meet the standards for a First Class Medical."

Which is why you have sick leave and LTD insurance. So what happens to the dentist when they get the flu? Or when the dentist gets an orthopedic injury that limits their dexterity? Or picks up a blood borne pathogen from a needle stick? Or just develops rheumatoid arthritis? There are always risks.

But dentistry entails a $400k investment after getting your four year college degree (with a median GPA of 3.7 for dental college admission) in subjects a lot more challenging than most aviation degrees. And then you still need to take on big debt to set yourself up. And a disease or injury can take all of that away just as easily with even less effort. An injury to the dominant hand would have to be pretty severe to keep you from adequately operating a yoke or joystick. It could take away a dental career much easier.

I think you gave bad advice.

you know what they say about buttholes and opinions. Everyone has one. And both of yours stink of arrogance and ignorance.

Arrogance perhaps, but not ignorance. It's the arrogance of someone who knows the FACTS and the NUMBERS, who looks at BOTH sides of the argument and not just one. Four years of Dental school are not just a $400k investment on top of a previous investment of four years, they are pretty much a total commitment of four years of your life when you don't do much else, and they are pretty much valueless if you aren't going to continue in that career - which will cost you even more time and money before it comes to fruition. So if he were to go the alternative route, spending even a third as much money in four years where would he be? With current upcoming retirements someplace with decent LTD and with seniority enough to not have to worry too much about furloughs.

Now it's his choice of course, not yours or mine, but a good career is ahead of him either way, but no way is he going to be able to do BOTH careers and to tell him to spend money to cover both bets is simply ignorant. So yeah, I may be arrogant, but I at least would have the humility to admit I was wrong if the FACTS went against my argument. Which of course really begs the question of which one of us is the ignorant and arrogant butthole doesn't it?

A doctor or dentist wanting to switch to flying is one thing... sunk costs are already sunk. The cost of flying at that point is just the cost of flying, plus lost opportunity cost during the lean years (more significant for an MD/DDS than for say a career-changing accountant).

Telling some-one who is pre-med or pre-dental school to do that and THEN go fly really does not make sense at all.

Years past, I would have encouraged folks to get a degree is something useful and portable, as a backup job. But back then you needed the degree anyway, a little more time and money to get certified in say accounting wasn't a ludicrous proposition. But today you don't even need a degree to fly (for the time being at least), you can quickly rise above the furlough high-water mark, most US airline pilots work for a comapny which is too big to fail, and they all have pretty good LTD programs. At this point if you want to fly, go fly, and do it quickly so as to grab as much seniority as you can while the retirement wave is still playing out.