Hello,I’m currently a third-year undergraduate student wanting to become a pilot immediately after completing my studies. I completely understand the lengthy process involved in pursuing a pilot career. However, lacking any prior experience, I find myself at a crossroads, uncertain whether to begin flight lessons now or wait until I graduate from university. I’ve heard that ATP offers a fast-paced one-year program designed to take students from no experience to experienced pilots. With that in mind, I wanted to gather some insights about this program to determine if it’s the right choice for me to apply now or if I should wait. Also, I’m curious to know if the program includes obtaining a private pilot license, an instrument rating, and whether it would allow me to accumulate the necessary 1,500 flight hours while enrolled.
David,
First and foremost I recommend 2 things. First, you visit and spend some QT on the ATP website. The answer to many (if not all) of your questions can be easily be found on there. Second, if you have zero experience you should schedule an intro flight and lesson. While many people belive they want to fly, until you go up in a small training airplane you really won’t know for certain. Now to your questions:
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I would wait till you finish school. Training part time is ridiculously inefficient and often takes more time and money then necessary. There’s a reason why the airlines and the military train daily and ATP modeled it’s program after airline training. This will not only get your all your licenses and ratings on minimal time, it’ll prepare you for the pace of airline training.
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The program includes your Private, Instrument, MultiEngine, Commercial, Flight Instructor, Instrument Instructor and MultiEngine Instructor. Every rating you need to fly professionally and earn money as a pilot.
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No program includes 1500hrs of flying. If it did it would easily be an additional $100k+. After you successfully complete your training ATP will offer you an instructor position where you’ll be paid to build the 1500hrs to qualify for an airline.
Adam
David,
Finish that undergraduate program, acquire that bachelor’s degree, that is huge. Like Adam said, quality time should be spent between the ATP website and forum, as there are thousands of valuable resources across both domains.
The other thing is, you need to get into a plane (introductory flight) for a lesson or two, maybe more, to really see if this is a career you could foresee yourself divulging countless hours, sweat and tears into. What you could do is visit a few flight schools, conduct some introductory/admission flights, get firsthand experience from current and past students. While we can sit here and talk about our success stories and you see our posts daily, to interact in person with someone may be the ticket for you take the leap of faith.
Adam posted the link with all the information, so I’ll save you a screenshot in this reply, I like I have a collection of them saved on my computer. 
Brady