I’ve always heard the “get a degree in something other than aviation as a backup if you lose your flying job” but during Covid this rarely worked as viable plan.
Plenty of pilots had degrees in other areas but couldn’t put them to good use during Covid shutdowns because of a variety of reasons. Generally they had gotten their degrees years ago and had not be educated in the latest up to date information or were competing with recent graduates with more current knowledge and qualifications. As they found out you can’t just take a degree in say law or accounting or IT you did 15-20 years ago and then walk into a law firm, accounting practice or IT business and expect to get a professional job straight up.
Those few pilots I know who were able to put their degrees to use were those had had been “keeping their hand in the game” - they had been working at least part time in that other field non stop since graduating and had kept their skills and knowledge up to date concurrently with their flying career. Not exactly the most stress free lifestyle and not leaving much in the way of free time.
