My name is Connor Cragg, and I’m currently a second-year aviation engineering major from Chantilly, Virginia – just outside Washington D.C. Ultimately, it was only through a string of good luck and coincidence that I ended up pursuing aviation at Ohio State. When I was still a senior in high school deciding where to go to college, Ohio State was not even in the top 3 schools I was considering. I had only originally applied based on the fact that it was similar to the other schools I had applied to; a good engineering school with a large student population. Eventually, my decision came down to choosing whichever school was the cheapest, and I committed to Ohio State as a mechanical engineer. I had never really considered a career in aviation but have always had a passion for everything aviation related. Growing up in Chantilly, I had the privilege of living just down the road from the Udvar Hazy National Air and Space Museum – home to an incredible collection of just about every era of both air and spacecraft. Some of my personal favorites include a P-38, SR-71, FW-190, the B-29 “Enola Gay”, and the Space Shuttle Discovery. I’ve had a healthy obsession with warbirds and flying from the first time I visited onward. After learning about and reading into OSU’s aviation program, I decided to make the switch and pursue a career in the field.

As far as what I hope to do after graduation, I’m a little less certain of how I might work specifically. Right now, my goal is to become an airline captain – so right out of school my immediate need would be to find a job that I can sustain myself off of while building as many hours as I can. Thanks to the ability to get an RATP, I hopefully won’t be in this position for too much time. At the moment, the option I’m most seriously considering is becoming a certified flight instructor for OSU’s flight school, as it’s a relatively safe bet and I wouldn’t have to move too far away anywhere.

Ever since I could remember I was always fascinated with flying. I remember when I used to live in Ethiopia when I was about six years old my friends and I  would hold contests to see who could make the best paper airplane in the neighborhood. You would think that because we were so young the paper airplanes we used to make were not any good, and you would be right. I remember the older kids would always win. They had some secret eight-year-old techniques that they would use that always gave them an edge (which I would later find out was folding in the tip of the paper airplane so that it would stay intact for the entire contest). However that did not discourage me, it planted a thought that I would pursue all the way into college, a thought that would grow every time I flew in an airplane. Initially, I wanted to be an aerospace engineer and improve on the current aircraft of the world or perhaps build the future aircraft of tomorrow but I realized that my heart was not really into the idea of sitting in front of a blueprint of an airplane all day long. So with that in mind, I decided to go into Air Transporation with the goal of working on the business side of the Aviation Industry. This would allow me to stay close to my childhood passion but also give me a route into the business world in which I can apply my interpersonal skills to grow in the industry.

Upon graduating with my degree I plan on going into graduate school and getting my Master of Business Administration. After completion of my MBA, I want to go work for a big corporate aviation company so that I can get a first-hand look at the inner workings of the industry at a high level. With the experience that I would gain from this, I would branch out on my own and try to establish a business that would work closely with other aviation companies and the military in building the aircraft of tomorrow.

When I was younger and my friends asked what super power I would chose if I could only have one, my ideal super power would always be to fly. Now I know that humans flying on their own is impossible, so I did the next best thing and that was to become a pilot. The idea of being able to travel over everything else at a very high altitude and speed was always fascinating to me, therefore I decided to stick with it and go into aviation.

When I graduate I hope to have a job that I could at least live off of while still being able to fly. Whether it’s airlines or just flying around photographers, I just want to be able to say that I make a living off of flying a plane around.

I am currently a junior in the air transport major pursuing the professional pilot route. I got into aviation at a young age, and the fascination has never stopped growing. I was always watching airplanes, both big and small flying over my house in small town Ohio. I took an intro flight as well as passing ground school while in my high school years. After that I had continued to pursue the dream while studying at the small technical college that had a satellite campus in my home town of Mt. Vernon. After going part time for a few years and completing most of the general electives required I transferred to OSU. I had originally been enrolled in the engineering program with the focus on the flight training. I soon realized that the engineering was not for me. Being in the flight training program has been a fantastic experience so far. I chose this specific major because I wasn’t interested in the engineering or business side of things, air transport major seemed to be exactly what I had wanted.

I have been in the program for a little over a year at this point and the experience is one that will last a lifetime. The people I have met have been mostly great. And the friends are some that will definitely last a life time. I hope that these people will stay with me throughout my future. As for my plans after I graduate I would hope that I be done with flight training and do my time as an instructor. I hope to find a job soon after flight instructing in the air cargo or air surveying business. After I get enough hours to move on to the airlines I hope to find a job with Republic airlines, or even PSA airlines as of recently. I hope to progress to the major airlines and have a full career there. I hope to move or be based somewhere out west, preferably Washington, Colorado, or the Utah areas. I love the mountain areas and most of the locations like this have a major airport that would accommodate a career in the airline industry.

My name is Kyle Sanders and I am majoring in Air Transportation here at The Ohio State University. I have had a love for aviation my whole life and knew from a very young age that flying for an airline was something I wanted to do one day. Frequent trips to the airport to pick up and drop off my dad who travels frequently for his job sparked my curiosity for aviation and kept it rolling throughout the years. My parents have always been very invested in my interest for all things aviation, and have given every effort they could to contribute to my desires for the Aviation world, whether that be taking me to the airport to watch airplanes takeoff and land, or getting take out for birthday dinners and watching airplanes as we ate. Whenever my family would fly places for vacations or other kinds of trips, i would always look in the cockpit of the plane we were flying on, and more often than not, the pilots would invite me up to take a look. Having seen the cockpit of commercial airplanes in person, I knew for sure that I wanted that to be my office one day.

Over this recent Christmas break, I recieved my Private Pilot License, and will begin training for my Intrument Rating soon. After that, I plan on obtaining my Commercial Rating, CFI, CFII, and ATP certificates over the next couple of years. My main goal after graduation is to join a regional airline as a First Officer when I meet the requirements to do so, and one day move on to a mainline carrier. I admire Southwest Airlines’ business model and fun loving culture, and would love to work for them one day. I also have a fascination for the 777 and 787 aircraft, and think it would be very cool to end up in one of those some day. However, I am not picky when it comes to aviation, and I am eager to see where the aviation world takes me in the coming years.

My name is Andrew Shiffer. I am a freshman from Irwin, Ohio. I am in the College of Engineering. I started out in the Mechanical and Aerospace Pre-Major, but I have been disappointed in much of the straight engineering design work, that came during my first semester. I do still enjoy the engineering mind-set and problem solving, so I am now exploring a major in aviation through the College of Engineering. I have been very interested in aviation, especially World War II aircraft, since I was little and got my private pilot certificate and instrument rating last year, which prompted me to explore the aviation industry as a career at Ohio State. I do not plan on pursuing a career as an airline pilot due to the schedule and lack of desire for the airline pilot lifestyle. I do not have one specific aviation career in mind, but I love to fly. I can see myself doing many different kinds of flying, including instructing, corporate flying, and flight testing just to mention a few. I just know I would love to fly lots of different airplanes in lots of different jobs/situations.

My current idea is to major in aviation through the College of Engineering. I would also like to add a minor, in order to diversify my knowledge and add another tool to my toolbox, as aviation can be somewhat unpredictable. I have not decided what I would want a minor in yet, but I am currently looking at my options.

Hi! My name is Mao Yoshida, and I am a one-year exchange student from Japan. I am majoring intercultural communication back in Japan, but I am thinking about changing my major to aviation soon.

I was always interested and has always been my dream to work in the aviation field since I was a kid. My family and I have been moving to different countries, and traveling a lot, and would ride an airplane at least once every two or three months, so riding an airplane is like part of my life. I also love how we can see the world from the sky when we look outside from the airplane; it’s amazing to see how different countries are all on one big planet.  These two experiences are probably the reason why I got interested in this field.

When you major intercultural communication in Japan, you can get a job in almost any field. Therefore, even though my major is not aviation, I can still get a job through this major and I was thinking about graduating by majoring intercultural communication. However, I saw OSU in the exchange program list and found out that there are aviation courses here. This was when I decided to apply for Ohio State University and take aviation course to gain some knowledge. In addition to that, I also decided to get a private pilot license here in Ohio and I am working on that right now. It will make me easier to get an aviation job in Japan.

I am not 100% sure what I want to do in the future yet, but I am thinking about applying to airline companies and become a pilot after studying for four years at the university in Japan. I want to connect many people from different countries by face-to-face, and want many of them to experience how fun it is to visit, interact and learn about other cultures.

My entire life, for as long as I can remember I have had a strong passion for the world of aviation and the concept of flight. Growing up I was the kid that would sit at the airports and watch planes come and go, and was also the kid that built and collected model airplanes. I was the typical aviation geek growing up. I grew up in a military family so this drew me more towards the military world of aviation and that’s always been the only route I want to go with my career. From my own experiences living in a military family and being surrounded by friends that were also in military families my whole life these military values and way of life has heavily influenced my way of life. I originally started off my official aviation career down in Florida at Florida Institute of Technology where i finished my private and commercial cross countries. I absolutely loved my time there and I truly do miss it. I am now at Ohio State because I made a choice to pursue my athletic career more heavily and an elite program such as Ohio State was better suited for that. Doing this has in a way put a pause, or slowed down my flight training progress because of transfer conflicts as well as large time requirements with athletics, but not to much to my worries for my future career.

My plans after graduation is to become a career long pilot in the US Navy or US Marine Corps. Doing this I am not required to go through all the flight training that commercial airline pilots need. I have already begun my testing progress to drop my officers package into the military and I expect to find out if I get accepted into military flight school by the end of this semester. I am not interested in the airline route at this time so i expect to be in the military immediately after graduation and spending as much time as I can flying around the world and serving our great country in the coolest aircraft this world has to offer.

As a kid, I would travel a lot with my dad and that is where I got my love for flying. I applied to UND, Purdue, and Riddle in addition to OSU. I chose OSU out of the four mainly because it’s close to home and I was eligible for in state tuition. The aviation programs at each school are high ranked throughout the nation so I didn’t really compare them too in depth. I came into OSU as an aerospace engineering major with the aviation engineering minor, but I realized it’s not what I really wanted to do. I chose aviation engineering as my major because I had hopes of being eligible for restricted airline transport pilot certificate from the OSU flight school. I thought the engineering route would be the easiest of the three paths at OSU. I’ve always been interested in aviation, so I wanted to spend my career doing what I love. After I graduate, I would love to work for a part 135 operator. I think flying for part 135 is better suited for me rather than flying as a certified flight instructor. There’s a seaplane operator in Miami and a Caravan operator in Hawaii that look very fun to fly with. I will keep the option of flight instructing open because they are always in need. Once I hit the 1,500 flight hours, I will transition to the part 121 operators. My goal is to fly for Compass Airlines since their crew bases are attractive. Most of the pay scales at the regional airlines are comparable. Once I fly enough at the regional airlines, I have a couple of options I am considering right now. The most attractive option is to move to Japan to fly with ANA or JAL. I want to move back to Asia for the lifestyle, so that is my number one option. The second option is to move to the major carriers in the US. If I choose to do that, I think I would try to fly with United Airlines since I’ve flown with them all my life. I think there are many paths to get to the major carriers, so I need to look at the big picture and not set myself on one particular course.

When I first started looking at colleges I had no idea what I wanted to major in. I knew I wanted to fly but my parents weren’t as onboard because my uncle was a pilot and he struggled after 9/11 and then the 2008 recession and they didn’t want me to follow the same path. Because of this I didn’t look at very many schools with aviation programs. When I looked at OSU I noticed their Aviation Business major and that kind of piqued my interest, and my parents were more ok with that because I would have that background in business as a backup plan in case flying didn’t work out. I came to OSU my freshman year as an undeclared major and took the intro to aviation course and some business courses to see if that was what I really wanted to do. I loved the intro to aviation course and was less thrilled about the core business courses, and after talking to some people I figured that majoring in Aviation Management isn’t what I really wanted to do, so I finally declared myself as an Air Transportation major with the pilot track at the end of freshman year. I plan on minoring in something other than aviation so that I do have that backup plan in case something were to happen in the industry that would prevent me from finding a job, I just haven’t decided what I want to minor in yet.

As of right now the goal is to become an airline pilot after I graduate. I don’t have a specific airline in mind yet and I guess I’d be pretty willing take any job that is available and offered to me. I am not 100% set on the airlines however and if another opportunity came up I would be willing to consider deviating from that plan. I do know that I would like to fly after graduation though and hope that I can do that, although I wouldn’t mind a more administrative job in the aviation industry, as long as it still gave me the opportunity to occasionally fly.