Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman became the first African American to be issued a pilot’s license on June 15, 1921. Coleman was born on January 26, 1892 in an age where her race and her gender played against her. She wasn’t allowed to go to flying school in the US, so she herself French and moved. In France, she got her license while specializing in stunt flying. She was able to get jobs performing tricks and barnstorming. In 1922, she became the first African-American female to fly in public. Her goal was to start a flying school for African-Americans in the US. In 1926, at just age 34, Coleman was involved in a fatal accident when the controls of her airplane jammed and threw her from the cockpit.

Players: United Airlines would be a player in this as they have a high interest in what their customers think about them, and they have the power to do something about it.

Context Setters: Employees of United Airlines would be the context setters as they have some power in how to treat the customers but they probably don’t have a lot of interest in it as it’s not their company and it’s not really affecting their pay.

Subjects: Other passengers would be subjects as they have a high interest in how airlines treat their customers, but they don’t have much power in changing that. Other airlines would also be subjects as they want to know what customers think about their competition.

Crowd: the crowd would be people that follow this persons Instagram but maybe don’t travel often and don’t care about airlines.

My most memorable vacation was a road trip to Colorado in May 2017. A group of 5 of my friends and I decided to take a different kind of senior trip after our graduation. The rest of the kids in our class were all planning trips to the beach, and we wanted to go on a road trip to camp and hike in the Rocky Mountains. As 18 year old kids right out of high school, we didn’t have the best of cars, and it took a lot of compromising to get our parents on board with this trip. They not only didn’t want us to drive 27 hours in our cars, but they also weren’t very enthused by the fact that we would be camping in the wilderness across the country. To convince them, we bought all the right supplies and materials and made a planned rotation for drivers. It was a group of 6 kids with two old cars packed fully with camping gear. Although the drive was long and exhausting, it was one of the best parts of the trip. Speeding across the country with your friends is a great experience. As soon as we left, we threw the driver rotation away and we tried to see who could drive for the longest time. One of the cars we took was my 2004 Toyota Camry, so I wanted to drive it the whole way. After 24 hours straight and 6 red bulls, I had to switch drivers. We finally made it to Rocky Mountain National park and set up camp. We decided that it would be smart to do all of our hiking off trail. Every time we reached a peak, we would set up a little camp and smoke cigars to celebrate. The 10 days of fun did not come without a few scares. At one point, we were at a peak when a thunderstorm hit. We managed to hide between to large boulders while lightning struck the ground around us. We also split up going down from a snowy peak at one point. Three of us followed a frozen river down to the base, while two of us followed the ridge line. The other one just slid straight down in the snow and we thought we lost him for about 5 hours. We all ended up meeting at our camp, and we were all okay. One thing we didn’t plan for was the cold nights in Colorado. Even though it was the Summer and 70 degrees during the day, the temperature would drop to the 30’s at night time and we froze all week in our tent. We never let that bring us down and we still had an amazing trip. I would definitely recommend a long road trip and camping with your friends.

During the record-breaking government shutdown, government employees were forced to work without pay. After missing consecutive paychecks, fewer employees were showing up to work, including TSA agents. TSA agents are directly responsible for the safety of airports across the country. With less employees showing up to work, the airports became less safe. TSA agents were told they would receive a bonus for working without pay, but they have not received that bonus. Throughout the government shutdown, airports were not able to meet the standards of safety they have set.

One failure of communication that occurred was the TSA agents being led to believe they would receive bonus pay. If these agents had not been lied to, they may have still showed up to work. Another failure in communication would be in the government shutdown itself. If the politicians used better communication, they could have avoided the shutdown.

Link: https://www.vox.com/2019/1/24/18195809/air-traffic-control-unions-shutdown-warning

I am Mitch Perez. I am a sophomore from Canton, Ohio. I have always been interested in flying since a young age, so choosing the Aviation major was an easy choice for me. As a member of the Navy ROTC unit here at OSU, I plan on flying for the Navy after I graduate. I am not taking any flying classes during college, but I will be going to military flight school after. I hope that the classes I am taking now will give me the upper hand when it comes to flight school after college.