Tom's Blog

This past year at Lewis, I decided to live on-campus. Many people thought I was foolish for this reason mainly because I currently live only 25 minutes away. I was able to afford it and the curiosity of experiencing college for real made me want to live on-campus for my freshman year. Overall, it was one hundred percent worth it. I made many friends that I hope to be friends with for life, slept at least 3 times a week, learned to take care of myself, did whatever the heck I wanted to do. Living on campus may seem not completely worth it for people who are looking for the college experience of partying all the time. However, if you are that person, which I am not, it is what you make of it. I was looking for the college experience of being under my own room. Coming home right from class and laying in bed or doing homework, feeding myself etc. There are many opportunities and skills you build living on campus and I feel that the pros definately outweighed the cons. I'm exhilirated f

Recently, I had my first solo flight in the airplane. It was very nerve wracking when my instructor stepped foot out of the airplane, endorsed me to solo, and hearing his final words to me before he closed the door. "Don't die". These were the words that absolutely NO mother would want to hear, especially mine. So I started the airplane up and taxiied to the runway as carefully as I could because I was so nervous for this moment. I went through my last checklist and was airborne in no time. Flying alone for the first time surprsingly was not much different than having an instructor in the cockpit next to you. I was feeling a lot better once I successfully completed my first out three landings soon after. This experience was surreal. Having an airplane under my complete control is something so cool that is just something special to remember forever.

So in college writing 2 for this final project, I am writing about student-athletes and if they should receieve additional compensation ontop or instead of their scholarships they already obtain from the school every academic semester. The main reason being behind choosing such a controversial topic is because I believe it is one that I have no bias towards, and quite frankly, I do not have a stance at all. As I have researched for articles and summarized a number of them, the decision of what side to take is still very hard for me.If you're reading this, how do you feel about this idea of a student-athlete getting paid a salary just like the professional athletes? Did you know that these student-athletes generate over billions of dollars for the school in tickets in sales and do not receieve any of that profit? That is basically exploitation in some people's eyes. However, why should student-athletes get paid more money on top of their tuition? Receiving scholarship money is e

Throughout the second semester I have been taking flying lessons. As an air traffic control major, I only planned to earn my private pilot License just because it has always been a dream of mine. However, after flying for over two months so far, I have fallen in love with flying. My instructor even mentioned to me that I should consider switching my focus from being an air traffic controller to being a pilot. I have continued to do reasearch on the matter and the decision of which path to take will be one if not the biggest decision of my life. My family thinks that I have a lot of time to think and decide which one is for me. But the reality is, there is not much more time left to decide. This reason is because after I earn my private pilot license, which will be around mid-summer, I will be working to get my Instrument rating. After my sophomore year I will have obtained my instrument rating, the decision to either continue flight training to work on my commerical rating or to stop f