Tag Archives: carly mcdonald

5 Instagram Photo Spots On Campus That Are Totally Brag-Worthy

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Disclaimer: I am not a model. Your photos will probably turn out better if you know more than three poses, but hey! They work for me…

Okay, let’s face it. Everyone likes having good pictures of themselves, even if they aren’t posted. Sometimes a nice picture is necessary for professional services like LinkedIn if you don’t have a photo with a blank background.

If you’re an Embry-Riddle student, you’re not going to run out of photogenic spots anytime soon. Here are several brag-worthy spots around campus that will provide a beautiful background for your Instagram photos.

Location 1: Legacy Walk
Legacy Walk is the ~iconic~ walkway surrounded by palm trees leading from the admissions office, past the student union, and down to the big bird statue. When facing the bird statue, the College of Business and the Advanced Flight Sim center are on the right, and the student union and College of Aviation are on the left.


  • Photo taken by Rachel Smith.
  • Photo taken by Malik Turner.
  • Photo taken by Rowan Gruffydd.

In my opinion, Legacy Walk is a great photo spot because it’s always well-maintained and well-lit. You can position the giant bird statue behind you, or the student union; both are really attractive.

Location 2: That Giant Bird Statue
The giant bird statue is at the end of Legacy Walk, and it’s very hard to miss. When facing it, the Aviation Maintenance Sciences building is on the left, and the Flight Operations building is on the right. When facing away from it, you’ll see the admissions office.

Photo taken by Malik Turner.

It’s another one of Embry-Riddle’s most iconic locations. I’ve seen several photos here of people who’ve just passed their checkrides, too. Even for non-flight students, the giant bird statue is a good place to take pictures in front of.

Location 3: The Big Riddle Sign/Wright Flyers
The big Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University sign and the Wright Flyers statue are in front of the student union between it and the admissions building. They’re right next to each other, and they’re also very hard to miss.

Photo taken by Karen DiMeo & featured on ERAU’s Instagram!

This spot, in my opinion, is perfect for the “I’m going to Embry-Riddle!” announcement post. Once here, this allows you to take a wide-angle photo so people can see just how gorgeous the campus is. If you’re lucky, you may even snap a photo with a plane taking off in the background- we are located adjacent to the Daytona airport.

Location 4: The Lookout Spot Over the Flight Line (!!!!)
The lookout spot over the flight line is located on the Tomcat Annex, aka the mailroom. It’s a nice place to watch the Riddle planes from, but it’s not super close to the large runway. It does, however, make for an Instagram brag-worthy photo.

All photos taken by Malik Turner.

Bonus points: if you’re a flight student, snap a photo with one of the planes and flex on your non-pilot friends.

Flex on your friends! Photo taken by the CFI I flew with, but he wasn’t my regular one so I forgot his name :/

Either way, the flight line (or the lookout spots around it) is one spot you can’t miss. They’re also nice places to do your schoolwork. (That is, of course, if you don’t get distracted!)

Location 5: Inside the Student Union
The inside of the Student Union is gorgeous, too. There are a lot of different places that make for good picture-taking spots.

  • First floor lobby. Photo taken by the caricature artist.
  • First floor lobby. Photo taken by the caricature artist.
  • Third floor ft. Starbucks in the corner. Photo taken by Alex Kassarjian.

Of course, there are several other pretty spots in the student union that I didn’t think to get pictures of. When there was no pandemic, Starbucks had seating. However, there is a balcony adjacent to the Starbucks that makes a nice photo-taking spot as well. While technically not inside the student union, there are tables and benches outside of it that would also make good photo-taking spots.

Embry-Riddle has a surplus of scenic spots to take photos with. There are several that I didn’t even show here, either: the volleyball courtyard in between New Res 1 and 2, the bridge to the student village, in front of the various colleges, or even inside them. No matter where you go, you’ll be able to find places for your photos. The student newspaper, the Avion, has also hosted free professional photo booths for students. Other students may have a photography hobby and take photos for free.

Your friend may also have a really nice phone or superb editing skills- some of the pictures above were taken with iPhones, while some were taken with actual cameras. It just takes a few snaps to get the perfect photo since the Riddle campus provides the perfect background.

See you around… or on social media!

Carly @ the dorm

What My Week Before Winter Break Looked Like

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*insert the Bernie Sanders meme that says “I am once again asking you for your financial support” and send it to my mom, who will promptly leave me on read*

Well, winter break is finally upon us.

The week before break was stressful for everyone, and I decided that I should take a few breaks before the official break. I can’t say that the impending break was the reason I repeated some semi-stupid decisions, but I think that break made me go “hey, life is stressful, have some fun and go do the things you’ve wanted to do all semester long.” And what were these decisions? Dying my hair and getting acrylic nails!

Semi-Random Decision #1: Dying my hair.
Why it’s semi-random: I had a box of dye just sitting around. I got it at Target a few days after I tried to dye my hair pink for the first time (detailed below). But I planned to wait 4-6 weeks before doing it again so I wouldn’t damage it too much.
Cost: Like $8? I forget, honestly.

Here’s the story about me trying to dye my hair pink for the first time:

On Thursday night (November 19), I was pretty bored. I was sick of studying and had done everything that I could for other classes. And then I remembered that I had the other box of hair dye. It had also been over a month since I last tried it, so it wouldn’t harm my hair. So, in about five minutes, I made up my mind that I wanted to try and re-dye my hair. This is the one I got:

Garnier Nutrisse Ultra Color in Ultra Bold Violet.

I borrowed a friend’s hair paintbrush, and she told me how I should dye it. It was almost 11:15, but my first class on Fridays didn’t start until 1:25, so I didn’t care too much. I could afford to stay up a little later. Once I was done, I sent the pictures to my mom of the during and after. She didn’t have too much to say, but then again, she’s a college professor. She knows that students will make stupid decisions at times.

  • During…
  • After!

I mean, it kind of worked, so it wasn’t that stupid… right? It still shows up when I stand under a light, and I could give Ariel from The Little Mermaid a run for her money.

Anyway, I went to class on Friday, and then on Saturday, my friend and I were sitting in the student union together. We were talking about acrylic nails, and it just so happened that my friend had a car. And that’s when we decided to go.

Semi-Random Decision #2: Getting acrylic nails.
Why it’s semi-random: I wanted to do it all semester, but I didn’t for several reasons. First, I don’t have a car on campus, and acrylic nails are expensive. Also, they’ve never lasted more than two weeks on my nails. (However, I haven’t had any problems yet- and I got them a lot shorter than I’m used to.)
Cost: $45, including tip. My poor wallet.

  • The tech preps my natural nails.
  • End result!
  • They match my phone!
  • Okay, these are CUUUUUUUTE! My friend got long ones.

They turned out pretty cute, so I can’t complain. This is my third time having acrylic nails, and I don’t know how long they’ll end up lasting. I do like them, so maybe I’ll get fill-ins in a few weeks.

As for COVID-19 precautions, all of the technicians wore two masks. There was also a plexiglass shield between you and the technician and a small opening for you to slide your hand under. Also, they made you wash your hands before and after the service was performed.

Saturday went by pretty fast. The original plan was for a few of us to have a fire in the firepit between New Res 1 and 2, but it rained. My friend and I then decided to go get milkshakes at Steak n Shake, drive around, and have a 12-2 AM karaoke party in her car. On Sunday, I took the third calculus test and got an 81%, which I didn’t think was bad at all.

On Monday, I went to one of my classes and the professor decided to cancel class on Tuesday. I was glad since it would have been the last class of the day. That class was the reason I had a flight home on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. I told my mom, and she was able to get me a flight on Tuesday from Daytona to my home airport.

Yes!

As much as I love Embry-Riddle, I was ready for a break and definitely ready to see my family and cats.

On Monday night, I packed up and hung out with a few of my friends. I, unfortunately, don’t live close to them, so there’s no chance that I’d see them over the break. On Tuesday, I said goodbye to one professor who was holding an optional Zoom class. After that, I went to Starbucks, said goodbye to a few other friends, and came back to make sure the last-minute items (like my phone and Apple Watch chargers) were packed. I also made sure to clean my room according to ERAU’s closing cleanliness standards for dorm rooms since my roommates/suitemates were gone.

I left for the airport at 2 PM even though my flight left at 3:30. I ran into several other Riddle students at the gate; I was on American Airlines flying from Daytona Beach to their hub in Charlotte, and from Charlotte to my home airport of Lexington, Kentucky. I had a window seat on the first flight and lucked out; nobody had taken the seat next to me. As we were sitting on the taxiway waiting to take off, I snapped this pic:

Hey… I know who that plane belongs to.

Yup, there was a Riddle Cessna landing right next to us, a CRJ-700. It was crazy cool. I also got to watch Riddle go by as we took off on runway 7L. It was a gorgeous view, and pretty ironic- my first in-person view of Riddle was landing on runway 25R, or 7L’s reciprocal runway.

As we flew from Daytona to Charlotte, I noticed a lot of things that I’d never noticed before. Since I had completed AS121 (detailed here), I knew a lot more about what the pilot was doing. I understood what the runway markings meant. I watched us fly parallel to the airport and enter the traffic pattern at Charlotte. I understood why we did what we did, and it was awesome.

At the end of the flight, I had to say goodbye to everyone since we were all heading in different directions. I had a one-hour connection but managed to snag a Starbucks before heading back to my gate:

If you’re wondering, this is an iced caramel macchiato with light ice. 10/10 would recommend!

I boarded that plane, which was empty, too. I talked to one of the flight attendants and she gave me a free upgrade to the exit row (yes!!! Free extra legroom!!!). I ended up chatting with her all flight. She also invited me to the flight deck to meet the captain once the flight was over.

Of course, I said yes, and it was pretty awesome. They let me snap a picture, too:

You can’t tell in the pic, but I was internally screaming. Also, yes, that is my Riddle sweatshirt.

After I’d left the flight deck, my family met me at the baggage claim and we went home, which took an hour. We hung out at the house for the night, and I wasn’t too tired. Because of my College Kid Lifestyle, I wasn’t used to going to bed at 9 PM, so I ended up staying up until 3 AM.

Whoops.

Either way, I feel like I had a pretty productive week before I went home for the holidays. I have two large assignments I need to do, but other than that, I don’t have any work, which is a nice feeling.

However, my cat has been critiquing my blog post. He thinks that I should write less and go give him a snack.

Can you spot the picture of me that my mom has?

I guess I’ll have to do that, then.

I Watched the Product of Literal Rocket Science

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Spoiler alert: It was freaking awesome, and hopefully, one day, I will be in a mission control room…

So, as space lovers like myself are well aware, the Crew-1 mission launched on Sunday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Since I live in Daytona now, I was lucky enough to be able to see it from ~10-11 miles away. And let me just say- that was awesome.

Since the Crew-1 was a crewed mission, a lot of people wanted to go. Thankfully, Embry-Riddle is only an hour or so away from Cape Canaveral, and everyone knows it. Because of the proximity, there’s a group chat on Snapchat full of people that like attending rocket launches. A lot of people- and I mean a lot– of people decided to go to this launch, whether they are in the group chat or not. Here’s what my snap map looked like nearly two hours before the launch:

Yeah, a lot of people went down. Some people made it a full day endeavor, hanging out at Cape Canaveral/Titusville/the Kennedy Space Center. If I had the time, money, and a car of my own, I definitely would have. Embry-Riddle has ZipCars, so people with ZipCar accounts can drive the ZipCars. That’s how my friends and I got a ride down there.

My friends and I settled on a bridge nearby to watch the launch. The bridge was pulled up, and the lights were pretty bright, so we decided to go exploring. We found a path that led to a birdwatching spot and realized that the launch pad was right in front of us. (We were facing south, north of the Cape.) Once we realized that, we instantly took a seat on the birdwatching benches.

There was no service for most of us, but luckily, one of our friends had 5G service. He streamed the launch and played it through one of our other friend’s Bluetooth speaker, but since he had limited cellular data, turned it off 30 seconds before launch. (We only had it on to ensure that the launch didn’t scrub.) While the stream was playing, we talked about the launch, including the rocket’s trajectory. Most of us were aerospace engineering majors on the astronautics track. Then, the launch pad lit up right in front of us, and we all started cheering.

We all screamed when we saw this. Photo credit: me.

It was crazy. It was as if the night had turned into day for a split second, and then we saw a tiny burst of light streaking up into the sky:

The little dot is the rocket. Photo credit: me.

We all had our cameras and filmed the little rocket shooting up into the sky. A few moments after the rocket launched, we heard the loud rocket rumble, and we were so close that we could feel it in the ground. I totally understand why some people cry during rocket launches- it was amazing to watch. This is how far people have come- we’re sending each other into space. This is the product of literal rocket science, something that I’m lucky enough to learn at Riddle. I couldn’t stop thinking about it- one day I could do something like that with my degree.

Since the rocket trajectory was going northeast, it curved to the left in the sky. We were able to see everything: we saw the first stage booster separate from the rocket, and then we watched the second stage booster ignite. After that, we watched the rocket get smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the sky.

We waited around in case we could see the first stage booster coming back down to land on the drone ship, but unfortunately, we didn’t see it. After that, we headed right back to Embry-Riddle. The roads back were quite busy, since people had a lot of different spots to watch from. One of my friends took this from a beach:

Crew-1 from the beach. Photographer wished to remain anonymous.

This is the second rocket launch I’ve seen; the first one was the Starlink launch in August. I’ve noticed that Crew-1, however, had a lot more attendees to it. It was absolutely amazing to watch, and I’m really glad I got to go. Even those who didn’t make the drive down to Cape Canaveral were able to see the launch from Riddle’s campus, which is another thing that I love about going to Riddle. On Friday, I had a test, so I couldn’t drive down with the rocket-watching group chat to watch the Atlas V launch close up. However, I could easily see it from Riddle’s campus!