Tag Archives: Presentations

A Busy End to Sophomore Year

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Hey everyone! As the spring semester comes to a close I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Dominic Popolo and I am a Communications Major with a track in Broadcast Meteorology and a minor in Emergency Management. I recently completed my second year at Embry-Riddle, which is crazy because it feels like I just started! I guess time just flies like that.

A picture of me in New York City last August!

This past week was probably the busiest I’ve had all semester. Between banquets, finishing up projects, presentations, and more, it has been a marathon. As stressful as it was, it was also super fun and rewarding.

My week kicked off on Easter Sunday, when my friends and I drove up to Matanzas Inlet to have one last beach day of the semester. I definitely enjoyed soaking up some sun before I return home to New Jersey, where it won’t quite be beach weather yet. The sun was definitely a little harsh and I got a little sunburnt, but I still had a blast!

Life is better in Flagler!
Ocean fun at Matanzas Inlet!
It was a nice Easter Sunday at the beach!

Tuesday started off with my final presentation in my Thunderstorms class about the March 25, 2023 tornado outbreak. My partner Reagan and I had been practicing all weekend for this presentation, and we were able to successfully give all the information about the severe weather event in the allotted time. It was definitely a stress reliever to complete the presentation.

That night, I had the annual end of the year meteorology banquet, where we celebrated the accomplishments of both the Meteorology Department and the American Meteorological Society / National Weather Association (AMS/NWA) Chapter on campus. This banquet was a great time to get together as meteorologists on campus, eat some barbeque, and watch the annual “Professors Read Mean Evaluations” video. The executive board for AMS/NWA next year was also revealed at the banquet, and I will be serving as Secretary. I am so excited to help further the mission of the organization on campus!

The AMS/NWA Executive Board for the 2025-26 school year!

After the banquet, I went to my final Avion meeting of the semester as News Editor, where we celebrated the semester with a party and staff awards and superlatives. It was such a fun year in Avion this year, and I am so excited to continue my journey in the organization as Managing Editor next year!

My final meeting with my News Team in the Avion. News Team Best Team!!!

Thursday was another busy day. I started my day off by presenting my research project at the Humanities/Communication Research Symposium. My group researched how upperclassmen digitally market themselves to potential employers for our Communication Research Theory and Methods class. It was such an enlightening experience to be able to present our research that we have been working on all semester.

Presenting my research at the Humanities/Communication Research Symposium!

Later on Thursday, I attended the Student Government Association (SGA) End of the Year Banquet. Here, we highlighted the accomplishments of the SGA throughout the last year, and looked forward to what next year will bring. It was a great chance to spend time with my friends and celebrate our hard work throughout the year. We also got some great pictures at The Avion’s brand new photo booth!

The 2024-25 Avion Executive Board celebrating at SGA Banquet!
The Avion’s photobooth at SGA Banquet was so much fun!

With Friday came study day, and I worked an entire day in the Weather Lab tutoring students for their Introductory and Aviation weather courses. I really enjoy my job here, being able to share my weather knowledge with students from all majors to help them succeed in their classes. Starting Friday night, I also assisted with the Late Night Study Sessions in the Student Leadership Suite, handing out donuts with the Avion as a part of the SGA’s broader initiative to feed as many students up late studying during finals. We gave out 10 dozen donuts in 17 minutes, which was crazy!

Finally, my week came to a close on Saturday. After working on our final reports and projects all day, my friends and I decided to take a drive to the park at Ponce Inlet with some Taco Bell for a break from the stress of finals week. This was a nice way to end our super busy week and spend some time with each other before we all disperse for the summer. A couple of my friends are graduating this semester, and I am so sad to see them leave. But I know there will be even more friends to be made and adventures to have when I return to campus in August.

A nice night at Ponce Inlet to cap off my crazy week.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my final week of Sophomore year on campus. Just know that there is much more to come over the summer and next fall! See you all soon!

It’s Crunch Time

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Next week is the last week of classes of the 2017 Spring Semester! This also means that “It’s Crunch Time” before we head towards summer. It is time to finish those last semester projects/presentations and study for finals.

On Monday, I have a presentation in my Social Responsibility and Ethics Management class. During the semester, we had to volunteer and do ten hours of community service hours as part of a project called Civil Engagement Project.

The following day, I have a group presentation in my Strategic Management class. We will report on how our company did during the eight rounds simulation. During those rounds, we produced sensors and sold them on the market. We were competing against other groups in our classroom.

Thursday will be my last day of classes at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University!

There are no classes on Friday as this day is dedicated to studying. My professor in my Aviation Labor Relations course will post our final exam on Canvas (online); we will have two days to complete it.

I will have a total of four “real” final exams that will take place during finals week (Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday). My other exams for my other three classes will be taken online.

In just about two weeks on May 8, I will be graduating!

Here are 10 Study Tips to help you prepare for your final exams:

  1. Do not look at the course material for the first time the day before the exam. Most professors mention the dates of assignments, quizzes, and exams during the first week of classes.
  2. Take notes in class and review them on the same day you took them.
  3. Start looking slowly at the material a week or a few days before the test. You will learn and memorize a lot more if you study a little bit every day.
  4. If you created a study guide, try to break it up and study one part at a time. It will be easier if you study it in small chunks instead of reading the whole study guide again and again.
  5. Create a short song or a series of letters when you have to memorize things involving steps or chronology. One time I had to memorize the 6 types of religious conversion. So I just remembered the first letter of each word and it sounded like this IMEARC.
  6. Repeating things loudly or writing them down many times on a sheet of paper will help you to remember the information for the exam.
  7. Quiz yourself or get a friend to ask you some questions. I often use Quizlet to test myself. There is a test option where the website generates a set of questions from the data you have to learn.
  8. Get all the information possible you can from your professor. Sometimes, they will tell you the format of the exam (multiple choices, true or false, short answers, short essays and/or long essays) and the number of questions.
  9. Take a break. Don’t study for hours in one sitting, but take some short breaks and move around.
  10. The night before the test, don’t stay up late at night to study. You should have studied a few days before and be ready. You will do better on the on the exam if you have a good night of sleep.

Good luck on your exams!

Nicolas

Isn’t this summer “Phenom” – inal???

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Nothing like starting off the post with a funny airplane pun, huh?

Throughout my very boring and relaxing weekend (which I am very grateful for – haven’t had one of those in what feels like years), I mulled over how awesome this summer has been. It’s not very often anyone can say that they’ve been able to compete in 2 National Flight competitions, placed in Top 10 in one and won the other competition AND intern at one of the greatest and most influential Business/Private Jet design and manufacturing companies in the world.

I’m in the process of creating my final internship presentation to present in front of other interns, my boss, my supervisor, and the head of the overseeing department that includes my human factors department. Trust me, after all of the presentations that I’ve given over the last 3 years at Riddle, especially this past spring semester, this is going to be a piece of cake. But in writing this presentation, I can’t help but be in total awe of the opportunities that ERAU has given me over just these past 3 years. I’ve been able to compete in 3 National Intercollegiate Flying Association Safety and Flight Evaluation Conferences (otherwise known as NIFA National SAFECONs), 2 going on 3 Regional SAFECON competitions, 2 Air Race Classic races, and interned at a leading aerospace company. I have been one busy girl, but I am incredibly thankful for those at ERAU who have helped me along the way.

People often look at a university for what some pretty obvious factors, like a football team, majors (of course), family history maybe, in-state vs. out-of-state, retention rate, money ($$$), and a few others. What I wish I had done, but what luckily worked out for me, were the hidden programs within the university. Other opportunities besides the obvious and marketed aspects. Of course, Riddle has an amazing flight program which I absolutely love, and great students and faculty, and amazing sports and flying opportunities. All of that is absolutely true, but what is often overlooked my incoming freshman are the countless careers paths and opportunities only offered to ERAU students. Of course, we all know about the cadet programs and gateway programs for the pilots, which I have considered over the years, but what about us engineers and specialists? It’s amazing how just mentioning your involvement with ERAU can put you leaps and bounds ahead of other students. I have at least 5 co-workers that are ERAU alum in one way or another and it’s fantastic networking. We share stories, gather advice, and share our love of Riddle. Many companies offer special scholarships to ERAU-only students, which I have been lucky enough to have received one this summer from Gulfstream. Aerospace companies and ERAU take pride in their connections, whether it’s students, employees, activities, Greek life, sports, anything and everything. People in industry are amazed at what Riddle has done for myself and its students.

I’m definitely proud to have been able to represent ERAU and be an Eagle thus far in my college career and I’m so looking forward to continue representing this amazing university for one final semester this fall.

I think you’ve heard enough of my early week ranting, so enjoy your week and get excited for more (hopefully more hysterical) posts from me.

Blue skies,

Emmy

(For those of you unfamiliar with what a Phenom is, Phenoms are a series of business jets developed by Embraer out of Brazil. They’re very popular aircraft in the United States and around the world. They’re definitely one of my favorite series. I think I may like the Phenom 300 a little bit more than the Phenom 100, only because it’s a slightly bigger aircraft. They’re definitely on my flying-bucket-list!)

When Are We Ever Going to Use That?!

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How many times as a high school student did you say, “When are we ever going to use that?!”  I know I must have said it hundreds of times, and even say it sometimes now as a junior in college!  When you look back on it, it’s all about gaining a specific way of thinking so to speak, and all of the hard work you put in is definitely worth it.  Thinking back, I can remember many Calculus lectures with Mr. Paul Keller and many days in AP Anatomy with Dr. Lance Brand back at Delta High School asking myself why on earth would we ever need to learn this stuff, but it all comes down to learning to put your nose to the grindstone and grit your teeth to finish the job.  As a student in Mr. Glaze’s engineering classes in high school, I often wondered why we needed to keep such organized class work and practice our class presentations so often, but those are things that I do every day here at Riddle.

Presenting the 2010 Delta High School IMSTEA SuperMileage entry as a junior in high school.  I never thought that I would carry that presentation experience into my daily college career!

As a student leader here, I often speak in front of peers and faculty members about many various topics and the experience gained in high school makes it that much easier every time the opportunity arises.

Another example of mine that I use often is my career in racing.  I have worked as a driver coach and tuner in karting for a few years now after a short, successful driving stint and I must say that, even though aviation and racing might not be the same industries at all, they are quite similar! Management and interpersonal skills are key in both arenas and I carry experiences from my flying over to the race track and vice versa.

I would have never imagined that racing would have taught me so many other useful skills that I use in my daily life. Here I am driver coaching at a national kart race in early 2013.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this blog as much as I have, and next time you wonder when you’re ever going to use what you learned by doing that 10 page research paper you dreaded so much, just think about the set of skills you carried away from it to put to good use in the future.

Happy flying!

Kyle

Getting down to business…

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In the past two weeks my duties around the office have gotten a lot more interesting and meaningful. From the beginning of the internship I have been involved with tasks associated with keeping up and maintaining records of retirements and captain upgrades, keeping our news distribution updated, and distributing information to pilots concerning all types of matters.

However, two weeks ago I began working on a project pertaining to the major airlines around the world. Researching airlines outside of the United States I have focused on where these airlines fly, what aircraft they are using, how those aircraft cabins are configured, what kind of orders they have for new aircraft, the airlines’ load factor and the profitability in the first quarter of 2008 for those airlines.

By gathering this data, we hope to be able to present the information in a user-friendly manor to our pilots, making them aware of exactly how many companies are competitive factors in our market. Some people might be able to name a couple of foreign airlines that fly into the US, but if you were to ask most any pilot in the airline industry today how many US cities Lufthansa fly’s into or how many aircraft Emirates has on order, the probability of that person getting anywhere near the actual numbers if very unlikely. In reality though, this information is astonishing and extremely important in looking at the future profits and sustainability of our own airline.

Currently I have compiled this and more information on five foreign carriers. After updating my boss on my findings and how the information should be presented, the interest in the project sparked around the office. I cannot put into words how cool it feels to be sitting in your little intern cubical and to have the most senior people in the office stop by to ask you to explain what you are doing; then after you explain, told how awesome what you have done so far really is.

So last week my boss stopped by to tell me that I would be presenting all of my information to her boss on July 3rd. This type of one-on-one time with one of the most senior members of my department is exactly the moment that any intern should work for. Being able to present a department project for further approval and backing is a great experience, and to have that be with a person of such clout is even better. With poster-sized visuals on each airline and an example PowerPoint system I designed to display carrier routes and to compare carrier routes, hopefully all will go well on Thursday.

In other news, last week we had a boy’s camp come to the flight academy. All of the kids were children that didn’t have fathers and getting a chance to hang out with these guys and possibly inspire them to succeed in school and follow their dreams was a great experience. The day camp was also just as exciting for me when we got to go on a tour of some different places around the flight academy that I don’t get the chance to see on a day-to-day basis. Getting to see for the first time the flight attendant training facility, the dispatch area, and flight operations area was very interesting because it gave you the bigger picture about what all goes into our company. We also got to “play” with an MD80 ground trainer, where the kids went crazy with excitement to be flipping switches in more or less a real cockpit.

Of course over the past two weeks I have continued the traveling experience, first going to New Orleans for a weekend. Staying right off Bourbon St. we got the chance to see some of the city during the day and get some true New Orleans dishes. Shrimp Creole for lunch and a huge plate of crawfish for dinner were both excellent for our taste of the Bayou. Getting the chance to spend a night on Bourbon St. was definitely an experience worth doing at least once in your life. (I don’t think I need to explain much here but I will say that it is everything you would expect Bourbon St. to be and then a lot of things you forgot to expect!)

This past weekend we found ourselves in Chicago for what was supposed to be a day trip. Getting to Chicago a little bit later than expected and still wanted to do more when it was time to leave, Chicago became a weekend adventure. On Saturday there was a food festival called a Taste of Chicago where you buy tickets and walk around sampling food from different restaurants in the city that have set up tents in the park. With thousands of people in attendance, the festival is a bit over whelming but it was a great touristy thing to do and a great way to taste some different foods. After the festival we walked around some more and went down to the water and checked out Navy Pier, the ultimate tourist spot in Chicago. Right on the water and looking back at the city the pier is worth going to and checking out the sites and sounds. Later that evening we got our famous Chicago deep dish and it was excellent. The city over all was very impressive, clean, and public transportation made getting to and from the airport a non-issue. I recommend checking out Chicago.

As I’m sitting here trying to think of what I have forgotten, I cannot believe how fast this internship is going by. IT’S JULY ALREADY! But I think I have gotten everything in for this entry and I hope everyone has a great Fourth of July weekend!

Cheers,
Jacob