career advice for young high school grads

[Dinner]

Re: Re: Re: pharmacist

Originally posted by Geronimo


I forget, did you enlist in the service or did you just do the weekend warrior thing before you got shipped over to iraq?

I was trying to think if it would be irresponsible of me to recommend he sign up.

I joined the Army Reserve and stayed in for a totalof 9 years (8 enlisted and then one stuck on stop lose). At this point I would not recommend anyone join the service if they want to go to college as you will be continually called up to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan.

[Dinner]

A commercial pilot could be a good fit for the right person. What is needed is a 4 year degree in any subject and then getting the necissary hours and qualifications. They do have colleges which specialize in granting four year degrees and training people to be commercial pilots which cost around $50k for a full four years and then you get out with around 800 hours of actual flight time. He'd then have to work as a flight instructor for 2-4 years (making around $15 per hour but only getting paid for 20 hours per week dispite having to be on call 50+ hours per week) in order to get the 2000-2500 hours needed to actually be employable.

Once you have the minimium hours you can get hired on as a junior flight crew making around $30k-$35k per year and after a year or two you can make Pilot in command ($45k-$55k at minors) and with an additional 1-2 years you can jump over to the major carriers who hire around $80k-$120k depending on experience. He'd have to spend around a decade not making much money but afterwards he'd be set as long as there are still union carriers still around which isn't a sure thing given how the aviation business is going.

[Zkribbler]

Civilians can become commercial pilots now?

P'tui, why back in my day, the airlines recruited military pilots exclusively.