Instructors: Stop telling your students they need to "go instructing"...

[RoAF-Mig21]

Then of course, what you should *really* have told him was to use that engineering degree to get an engineering job so he could fly his own private planes in a few years

Believe me, I did! I told him it'll be a while before he makes any money in aviation. I also told him no matter how much he loves flying, it'll be a job... A nice job, but just a job. We all have our reasons for doing it. For me, it's the time off and travel passes (because I travel a lot). If that were to change, I'd be out of aviation in a hearbeat. Fortunately, there will always be a place to go that has some sort of travel benefits.

[fliter]

I'm at a regional airline. We're hiring instructors like crazy. Many of them have only instructed for a couple of years, if that. So it's a pretty quick path to the airlines these days, and your lack of PIC time won't hold you back. Instruct for a year, right seat at a regional for a year, left seat at a regional for a year, Big Red is not an impossible scenario under current conditions.