The Kansas State University-Salina, College of Technology and Aviation

Date: May 06 2011
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
I went to K-State at Salina for 3 years, and I received my bachelor's degree from them. I can only speak about the aviation side of the school because I was at the Salina campus for all 3 of my years. The only good thing I am able to say about K-State at Salina is that I met some great friends there that I still talk to today, even though most of us have graduated and moved on from K-State. The school was, and still is very over priced for the education you receive from them. The faculty and staff, perdominantly on the aviation side, are somewhat lazy and unprofessional. A lot of times, class would consist of casual talk/gossip (something you wouldn't expect when paying almost $600 a credit hour)…one expects to be taught and to learn something when in college. There was hardly ever any homework for any of the aviation classes…if you went to class, you're almost guaranteed to pass. Also, copies of exams were constantly floating around because the professors were too lazy to change exams from year to year. All of the things mentioned above caused students to become lazy, and consequently very unprepared for the work world beyond college. After graduating from K-State at Salina, and even working as a flight instructor for them, I thought I would be somewhat prepared to move on and further my career as a pilot. However, I quickly realized during my first pilot job outside of K-State that I was severly unprepared, which was very embarrassing/upsetting for me. Overall, I am very disappointed with the education I received from Kansas State University at Salina. I was out more than $100,000 for my bachelor's degree (granted, I was paying out-of-state tuition), and I expected to get a much better education than what I received. They falsely advertise that they try and get all students with their commercial multi and instrument at least 20 hours of turbine time before leaving the school. However, what the don't tell you is that the transportation program has taken a major hit in the last couple of years (because of the economy) causing a reduction in flights in the king air. I, along with several other people, sat on the transportation program list waiting to be called for a flight for several months, and I never got called for a single flight. All of my turbine time has been built outside of K-State. I chose to do my graduate school elsewhere, which has worked out great for me. Due to my experience with K-State at Salina, I really looked hard for a better university to work on my masster's degree through. Overall, I wouldn't fail K-State at Salina…however, I would only give them a high "D", maybe a low "C". They have a lot of changes/improvements that need to be made.