Delta drops degree requirement for pilots ...

It’s been a while coming but I believe it’s happening in many fields. If you have relative experience and are good at what you do, a degree is junk…. I’ve met too many people that have a degree, but that’s where the magic stops.
 
Half Fast said:
As an engineer, I often served as a hiring manager for Lockheed Martin. I know who I and others would hire and I know how we evaluated qualifications. Mine is a well-informed opinion in this area.
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Our qualifications are similar, but I suspect our engineering disciplines and technologies differ significantly. A stale degree and 'a few classes' would leave you way behind the pack in my experience (which includes being a hiring manager, FWIW) unless you were a superstar or had outside engineering-related work that otherwise set you apart.

Nauga,
with a coat of flex seal on his screen
 
OneCharlieTango said:
No reason to be impolite just because we’re strangers.

FWIW, I have 15 years of post-high school education in two scientific fields. I know some things about education.
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Sorry if I struck a nerve, that was not my intent. I didn’t mean you specifically.
 
nauga said:
Our qualifications are similar, but I suspect our engineering disciplines and technologies differ significantly. A stale degree and 'a few classes' would leave you way behind the pack in my experience (which includes being a hiring manager, FWIW) unless you were a superstar or had outside engineering-related work that otherwise set you apart.

Nauga,
with a coat of flex seal on his screen
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Of course you would be behind the pack, but you’d still be well ahead of those with no degree.
 
Salty said:
Of course you would be behind the pack, but you’d still be well ahead of those with no degree.
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The top of the "not hired" list doesn't pay any better than the bottom.
 
I have a BS in Business Admin, which I got back in 2006. I remember barely anything from that. But it lets me check a box. I actually got the nod from Delta last month, but I didn't make it through their online assessment. Hopefully I have another chance in 5 months.

Honestly, I would try to get into a trade as a fallback to flying if I wasn't able to fly anymore. There are lots of opportunities these days that pay very well.
 
OneCharlieTango said:
What BS degree is useful, cold for 10 years, and where? Honest question.
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Nursing is another. I knew a lady who ended up getting divorced after about 20 years of marriage and never worked a lick in her life. Once she got divorced and on her own, she was forced to take a few classes to get caught up to speed and renew her license and is now working full time as a nurse.
 
nauga said:
Our qualifications are similar, but I suspect our engineering disciplines and technologies differ significantly. A stale degree and 'a few classes' would leave you way behind the pack in my experience (which includes being a hiring manager, FWIW) unless you were a superstar or had outside engineering-related work that otherwise set you apart.

Nauga,
with a coat of flex seal on his screen
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Could be. YMMV, of course. Here’s how I look at it.

The niche areas I mentioned are not covered in most undergrad curricula these days. And I usually had difficulty hiring for those niches. A person who comes to me with a stale degree but a few recent courses plus a cert in EMC is in a good place to get an entry-level offer and is ahead of the new grad who has zero training in that area.

It’s also a plus if the stale degree is from a top name school and has excellent grades. It might be stale, but I’d bet the applicant is still smart, and some recent training would show me he’s willing to put in some effort and wants to learn.
 
RyanB said:
Nursing is another. I knew a lady who ended up getting divorced after about 20 years of marriage and never worked a lick in her life. Once she got divorced and on her own, she was forced to take a few classes to get caught up to speed and renew her license and is now working full time as a nurse.
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Nursing is a good example. Unlike engineering, they don’t care much about retention, especially right now.

Take two pilot wannabes, Jane and June, both 18. Jane goes to ERAU, gets all of her ratings, and graduates with a degree in airport management at 22. At 24, she’s a new FO at a regional with $100k in educational debt.

June starts an apprenticeship in welding to pay for her flight training. At 20, she’s making $50k or more as a welding apprentice, has no debt except a Honda Civic, and is building hours as a CFI. At 24, she’s a FO at a regional, somewhat saddened by the pay cut she took when she went to the airline, but she’s debt free.

If they get furloughed, who’s in the better position?
 
RyanB said:
Nursing is another. I knew a lady who ended up getting divorced after about 20 years of marriage and never worked a lick in her life. Once she got divorced and on her own, she was forced to take a few classes to get caught up to speed and renew her license and is now working full time as a nurse.
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Yep. I knew a lady with a math degree who got married right after college and had a couple of kids, then decided to be a stay-at-home mom for a while. A dozen or so years later she decided to start working and we hired her as a systems engineer to do data reduction and analysis. She had a fine career.
 
Half Fast said:
It’s also a plus if the stale degree is from a top name school and has excellent grades. It might be stale, but I’d bet the applicant is still smart, and some recent training would show me he’s willing to put in some effort and wants to learn.
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If someone made it through a top engineering school, they are most likely going to have a career in engineering with flying as a fall-back ;-)

There is another aspect to getting a good undergrad degree. It's for the opportunities in further schooling it opens. I used to work with an anesthesiologist who did his medical career while on furlough from United. When 16 years after 9/11 they finally told him 'or else', he went back to flying and scaled anesthesia back to a 'per diem' gig.
 
OneCharlieTango said:
Nursing is a good example. Unlike engineering, they don’t care much about retention, especially right now.

Take two pilot wannabes, Jane and June, both 18. Jane goes to ERAU, gets all of her ratings, and graduates with a degree in airport management at 22. At 24, she’s a new FO at a regional with $100k in educational debt.

June starts an apprenticeship in welding to pay for her flight training. At 20, she’s making $50k or more as a welding apprentice, has no debt except a Honda Civic, and is building hours as a CFI. At 24, she’s a FO at a regional, somewhat saddened by the pay cut she took when she went to the airline, but she’s debt free.

If they get furloughed, who’s in the better position?
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What if your hypothetical was the loss of the use of a hand, an eye, or leg(s), or a back injury rather than a furlough?
 
OneCharlieTango said:
Nursing is a good example. Unlike engineering, they don’t care much about retention, especially right now.

Take two pilot wannabes, Jane and June, both 18. Jane goes to ERAU, gets all of her ratings, and graduates with a degree in airport management at 22. At 24, she’s a new FO at a regional with $100k in educational debt.

June starts an apprenticeship in welding to pay for her flight training. At 20, she’s making $50k or more as a welding apprentice, has no debt except a Honda Civic, and is building hours as a CFI. At 24, she’s a FO at a regional, somewhat saddened by the pay cut she took when she went to the airline, but she’s debt free.

If they get furloughed, who’s in the better position?
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Well, I wouldn’t hire Jane. Anyone who borrows $100k to get an airport management degree from Riddle has no business (or common) sense.
 
CPA double majored in Accounting and Finance. Worked at Andersen for 4 years before moving to a fund lending money to equity sponsor investments.

MBA from one of the top finance schools. Laid off in 2008 with 4 years public and 8 years at that fund. Big 4 wouldn’t touch me. Couple of smaller firms told me they don’t hire bankers. Too lazy (not hours worked but willingness to dig deep into numbers issues (turn-around consulting firms)).

I left public on good terms, so I wasn’t black listed to my knowledge. Regency of experience was they key, at least in 2008 (there were a glut of people looking for not a lot of jobs then, though).
 
Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
CPA double majored in Accounting and Finance. Worked at Andersen for 4 years before moving to a fund lending money to equity sponsor investments.

MBA from one of the top finance schools. Laid off in 2008 with 4 years public and 8 years at that fund. Big 4 wouldn’t touch me. Couple of smaller firms told me they don’t hire bankers. Too lazy (not hours worked but willingness to dig deep into numbers issues (turn-around consulting firms)).

I left public on good terms, so I wasn’t black listed to my knowledge. Regency of experience was they key, at least in 2008 (there were a glut of people looking for not a lot of jobs then, though).
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That Andersen? The Enron book cooker dudes?
 
Salty said:
What if your hypothetical was the loss of the use of a hand, an eye, or leg(s), or a back injury rather than a furlough?
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Disability is disability. But no matter what, June arrives at this mishap $200k better off than Jane.
 
luvflyin said:
That Andersen? The Enron book cooker dudes?
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Those book coolers are, literally, running big 4 and next tier offices across the US.

I doubt that had any impact.

People, myself as a hiring mgr included, would take someone with recent experience over stale, but varied experience, every time.
 
damn this thread got salty and personal in .69 flat lol.
 
Can’t imagine the % of Delta’s customers that care if their pilots have a degree of some kind I’d expect would be pretty low. If it was important, someone would be using it in their advertising. ;)
 
Mxfarm said:
Can’t imagine the % of Delta’s customers that care if their pilots have a degree of some kind I’d expect would be pretty low. If it was important, someone would be using it in their advertising. ;)
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As long as the airplane goes to its destination, I doubt the majority of Delta’s customers care about much besides ticket price.
 
MauleSkinner said:
As long as the airplane goes to its destination, I doubt the majority of Delta’s customers care about much besides ticket price.
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True but, Since when does what Delta’s customers or the flying public in general care about, matter to the airline’s management team. It is what it is. Employers set their hiring practices.
 
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OneCharlieTango said:
What BS degree is useful, cold for 10 years, and where? Honest question.
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You didn't specify a time limit, but fresh from school, BS chemistry are hired to run LC systems, and work at places running the clinical research trials, also QC departments in various industries. After ten years working in another field, they can work in lab equipment sales in companies such as Fisher, VWR, and the other lab supply houses. In sales, they don't need to be current, but still know the difference between a flash and an HPLC column.
 
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