School Career Day

bike21 said:
Amazing the number of kids that get off the plane with a tablet held 3" from their face, can't even put it down for second.
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I don't remember where I read it, but saw something somewhere that kids that were raised with touch screen/electronic toys are entering school and have trouble holding pencils because their hand muscles never developed much.
 
I used to make a video from the tower and approach control. Nothing fancy, but a 7 minute video of planes and blips means I only had to talk for 8 min ;)
 
Derg said:
"Ooh! Impressive utilization of Comic Sans!"
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NovemberEcho said:
Is there another kind?
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Sure, depending on who does the presentation it can keep the crowds attention. I can say I’ve never seen anyone get excited about seeing a PowerPoint presentation though. What would you use? I’m asking because I’ll probably be speaking to some kids at the end of the month. I was thinking of using slides to keep the flow of things going, not reading off the slides.
 
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USMCmech said:
I somehow got roped into presenting at my kids school for career day. I need to speak for 15 minutes to a bunch of 5th and 6th graders about the job of a pilot.

Has anyone else here done this? I'll be covering all the jobs outside of the airlines, the basic training progression, some myths, what school subjects you need to be strong in. What else should I include?

I want to show them that most pilots only need basic math, but we need to apply those skills to real world problems very quickly. I'll demonstrate using an E-6B, sectionals, and some other show and tell stuff.
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I did one for my son’s class, 2nd grade. I showed them a YouTube clip of a cockpit departure. Brought in a model plane of the aircraft I flew and explained in as little as possible what some of the devices were. Asked my company for some swag(beach balls, wings, snacks etc.) to hand out. I was a hit and was asked to do it for other classes and grades. Keep it short and simple. With older kids it will be a little tougher.
 
Soul Brotha' said:
I did one for my son’s class, 2nd grade. I showed them a YouTube clip of a cockpit departure. Brought in a model plane of the aircraft I flew and explained in as little as possible what some of the devices were. Asked my company for some swag(beach balls, wings, snacks etc.) to hand out. I was a hit and was asked to do it for other classes and grades. Keep it short and simple. With older kids it will be a little tougher.
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I agree with the pilot swag. You might also consider pens/pencils/highlighters/pads of paper with your airline's logo, a post card picture of the airplane, etc. Kids like stuff they can get their hands on. Also, AOPA has a PDF entitled What is General Aviation that might be good to hand out.

I would keep it focused on the romance of flight, not too much on the technical. Save that more for one-on-one or break-out groups if they get that far. As they say in marketing, "Sell the sizzle, not the steak."
 
I got invited back to my high school for an career day to talk to high school juniors.

Alpa education committee will send stuff to hand out if you ask. Got airline stuff from the chief pilots office

I had something prepared - no PowerPoint or anything. Brought paper charts to show But I didn’t go along with what I had prepared.

I was paired with an air traffic controller so that was pretty cool and it turned into an off the cuff, go with the flow Q and A between me and the controller talking about a day in the life.

The juniors were more interested in having time off from classes than asking stuff about the profession.

questions were kind of junenile. Like Bathroom questions. How fast do you fly. No I don’t get to sleep with the flight attendants. How much do you make? “Dude I can buy a lot of snowmobiles with that.” The controller and I had a good laugh and thought that was kind of funny.

Directed the more serious kids to clearedtodream.org - the ALPA website for prospective pilots and jetcareers.
 
Don't miss the opportunity to emphasize the importance of an education as the airlines, UPS, and FedEx are looking for degrees. Also, PLEASE discuss the importance of being a law abiding citizen, drinking, drugs, etc.

You can make introduce these subjects and how they tie it in to aviation AND how they could impact a carrer in a manner that they may have never considered.
 
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