And if you do hire out, lose any "attitude" you might have. Unfortunately most "old heads" no longer want to deal with students and won't take them, which is a shame as there is a lot of knowledge to be gained from these people. The problem is that most of us have had it with the "I know everything" attitude so many students have. What makes matters worse is that the people who DO take students are often the ones who don't really know what they're doing themselves so that gets scary.

BTW, I am one of those who refuses students and everybody knows it. I had one too many tell me they know more than I do when opeating 10,000 ton lumber trains in grade territory. If I were to ever hear another student tell me "I know" or "That's how I do things", they'll be taking me off the engine in handcuffs and the world will have one less student!!!