If you haven’t heard yet, we are now boarding for your next stop along your college journey: Preview Day 2013. Every year, the Prescott campus invites accepted students and their families to come check out every inch of this amazing campus.

How much do you get to explore? As much as you want! With our doors wide open, we encourage you to look at our classrooms, dorms, demonstrations, and our flight line. You even have the opportunity to go up in one of our state-of-the-art aircraft and observe a current student and their instructor! Our hope is that when you come visit the Embry-Riddle Prescott campus, you feel that this is your college destination; your home away from home. On Saturday, April 13th, you have the opportunity to meet your future professors, talk with current students, and meet other accepted students!

Also during Preview Day, there will be meetings for you to learn more about classes, professors, and other information about your major. You get to receive your Eagle card/student ID and register for fall classes! When you arrive in the morning, we offer a delicious continental breakfast before the welcome address. In the afternoon, we invite you to our dining hall for a complementary lunch with other accepted students in your college and an opportunity to talk with current students while you eat.

If all that wasn’t enough, as part of our thank you for coming to Preview Day, we will give you our Embry-Riddle Travel Grant that will be added to your student account that will become a credit towards your first year! The amount depends on how far you traveled from home to our campus. If you have already visited our campus before, then you have already received this grant.

All we ask of you is that you please RSVP to http://prescott.erau.edu/admissions/preview/ so we can prepare materials for you. We will provide you with a schedule of the days events and other information.

I will be working on Preview Day for Admissions, so I hope to see you here on April 13th!

As is my annual tradition, this last blog before the end of the semester is going to be all about what I have learned this past year at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University! I am nearly finished with my junior year, and even though I thought I learned everything there is to know about ERAU last year, I somehow managed to learn even more about college life this year! So here it goes, my little gems of knowledge that I have collected this past year:

1.  Always be prepared (time-wise and otherwise) for emergencies (such as a broken down car) and realize that it does eventually happen to everyone. No one is immune to bad luck, unfortunately.

2.  The SGA Office in the Student Union has a free candy drawer, and when you’re lucky, there are sometimes Goldfish. Take advantage of this as often as you can!

3.  There are always going to be blocks on your schedule that you have to remove before you can actually register for classes. Don’t wait for the day of registration to go see your advisor! Chances are, everyone else and their dogs are going to be waiting in line too and you probably won’t get all of the classes you wanted.

4.  Join as many clubs as you can. There are awesome clubs like Zumba Club, Poker Club, Harry Potter Club, Sky-Diving Club, Ballroom Dancing Club, and so many more! You get to make new friends and the activities are always fun!

5.  As weird as this sounds, you should actually look at the fliers posted around campus in passing. Sometimes there are awesome under-the-radar activities going on that are not widely broadcasted.

6.  Don’t hesitate to go to Health Services when you’re sick. Even though school and homework are so important, staying healthy is important too! Don’t put off your health because you’re busy! (Such as so many other lessons in life, I had to learn this lesson the hard way!)

7.  There is not one single way to get ANYWHERE on campus. All the sidewalks are like zigzags, so don’t waste your time standing at the crossroads wondering which route is faster. Just pick one and chances are you’ll get to class on time.

8.  The quiet room in the library is a great place to study, especially when you don’t want to be bothered by tons of people making noise! However, if you’re a library-style-social-butterfly, the top floor is where you can study while you hang out with friends (hello, study groups!).

9.  Take advantage of being able to sleep in (yes, sleeping until eight is considered sleeping in!) In the real, working world, you don’t get that luxury!

10.  Take chances! Don’t be so risk averse that you miss out on all the fun and miss out on awesome memories. College life is the best kind, so make sure to enjoy it while you can, because it sure flies by!

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

-Ferris Bueller

It seems just like last month that I was moving in all my boxes into my freshman dorm. And now, I am just about ready to submit my application for graduation for the Class of 2013 of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  I definitely had some nostalgic feelings earlier in the semester during my third and final time I worked as an Orientation Leader.  I couldn’t help but recall my own memoires as a freshman student, straight out of high school, without a clue in the world of what I had gotten myself into.

And today, I am senior in college, finishing up the last few credits I need to earn that Bachelor of Science degree.  Senior year has been an absolute blast these last few months.  Every single fall semester prior to this year, I couldn’t wait until Thanksgiving and Winter Break and I was burnt out by the time the end of November came around.  This year, I actually found myself asking where all the time went by and not wanting the semester to end.

One of the more unique experiences I’ve had the pleasure of participating in was traveling on behalf of the Office of Admissions throughout the United States on recruiting events for the university.  For the fall semester, these were the Admissions Information Meetings for prospective students around the nation.  I was able to visit different cities on various different weekends including, El Paso, Texas, Albuquerque, New Mexico, San Marcos, Texas, Los Angeles, CA, Salt Lake City, UT, Phoenix, AZ and Ventura, CA.  I was tasked to represent the office from the perspective of a current student and basically share my knowledge of the university as well experiences.  It was interesting to be able to relate to students in their junior/senior years of high school. I always made sure to emphasize that I was really not much older than they are and that I was in their exact same position just a few years ago.  My goal was to be as relatable as possible with the students and be able to give them the same assistance I received when I was their age.

I guess being able to travel allowed the semester to quickly fly by, no pun intended.  Besides that, I have been heavily focusing on my new position as Senior Campus Ambassador for the university and all the new responsibility associated.  With my counterpart, we are in charge of the Campus Ambassadors/Tour Guides for the Office of Admissions.  The middle of the fall semester is usually associated with heavy tour activity so you can imagine how busy it has gotten.

Sometimes, with work, travel, and other items, I forget I am still a student.  My class load consists of only twelve credits and my classes include Aircraft Accident Investigation, Mechanic/Structural Factors in Aviation Safety, Applied Climatology, and Studies in Literature.  I am hoping this year to be able to graduate with a double major in Aviation Safety Science but we’ll see what happens.

Besides all the above, I’ve been able to thoroughly enjoy all of the activities that accompany senior year.  One of my main mottos this year is no holding back in regards to every aspect of my life.  It really is true that college consists of four of the best years of your life.  And it was just recently that such insignificant things (walking through the fall leaves on campus, the crisp clear skies at dawn, and the power of a monsoon thunderstorm) all of a sudden meant so much to me.  I wish it didn’t need to end.  Senior year continues and I look forward to sharing with you the memoires that have yet to be made.

Let me know what you think as well as any questions you might have in the comments below. Thanks!

One of the most marked differences between my high school and college experiences is motivation. In high school, I cared less and less as the years went by. But in college, I get more and more excited about school as the semesters pass. Not only do the classes get more involved and delve deeper in to specific subject matter, but you start to realize that, in a few short years, you will be equipped to go and do this stuff in the real world. This semester, I’m taking private pilot ground I for helicopters, private pilot flight I, COM223: Intelligence Writing, LCH101: Chinese 101, and SS110: World History. I have definitely been the most excited about my classes this semester than any other before. I’ll tell you about my two favorite and most involved classes this week.

Intelligence Writing, taught by Deanna Austin, is easily my favorite class this semester. It’s a great class and Austin is such a great professor. I will take anything she teaches. In this class, we chose a country at the very beginning of the semester and have been assigned various subsequent writing assignments pertaining to it. Every other week, we do “Milestones”, where we collect information about the issues going on in our country. We use these to brainstorm ideas for Intelligence Briefs that we write about once a month. We write briefs on any issue of importance to the country and its relations to the US and the world. The cool thing about these briefs is that we submit them to our school’s intelligence publications, Eagle Eye, so there is a chance your brief could be published! During lectures, we talk about all sorts of topics relating to intelligence writing. Right now, we are going over key assumptions and how to become aware of them in your writing. One of the things that I really love about how Austin structures this class is that we do a lot of in-class activities where she will show us a method of, say, brainstorming, and then we will all take half an hour to practice it and turn in a mini-assignment. It really helps the method stick if you have an opportunity to try it out yourself and then get feedback.

Chinese 101, taught by Yang Li, is a very demanding class. We follow our textbooks very closely in this class, which are broken into lessons that are structured around a dialogue between two people. In each dialogue, we learn a specific skill, like how to ask what date and time it is, or inviting somebody to the movies. Normally we spend one day per week just going over new vocabulary words, one day a week where we give an oral presentation to the class, and one day a week where we are quizzed over the current lesson. One of the things I like best about the structure of this class is that we spend a lot of time speaking out loud, sometimes alone and sometimes together. But the times that we speak individually give the professor an opportunity to correct individual mistakes in our speech, which is very helpful.

This semester has also taught me that the professor can make such a difference in your success and enjoyment of a class. One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give you is to put some real thought into your schedule each semester. Not just when to take which classes when, that could be its own blog post. Do not write off the opinions of your peers. They can tell you which professors are great and who to avoid, which might be the difference between a semester that you thoroughly enjoy or the one that you spend hitting your head against the wall.

Hey there, I am Adam Olimski, an Air Force ROTC freshmen cadet at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  I am originally from Orange County, California but then I moved down to the beautiful beaches of sunny San Diego.  My favorite hobbies are photography, going to the gym, and taking hikes.  I made the big move to Embry-Riddle because of its outstanding reputation throughout the Air Force and community.  I am currently studying Electrical Engineering and looking forward to my future, hopefully traveling the world with the Air Force.

Outside of my school work and Air Force ROTC, I am a participant in the AFROTC Honor Guard team.  I do spend a lot of time and effort with the Honor Guard; it’s just one of those things you get addicted to.  The Honor Guard team has helped me develop my character and my teammates have been there for me like best friends.  Another thing I enjoy outside of campus life is the incredible nature. Taking hikes right across the street from my dorm is a great way to just relax and take in the fresh air.  I do spend other free time hanging around the dorm playing my epiphone electric guitar with my friends.  I also do go to the gym a lot, as I have always been a fitness guy. The gym is my favorite getaway next to hiking, photography and my guitar.  Upon coming here I have learned a lot about living on your own. Within only three months of living here I have come to enjoy the life I lead here and appreciate more of everything I do on my own.

My hopes of this blog is to offer a better understanding of the life of a freshman at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and answer any questions you may have about the BIG move to college.  Welcome to my blog.