I have learned a lot of things from English 1010, probably more then I will ever realize,

but one of them is writing with rhetoric. Rhetoric, at least the way that I see it is simply critical
thinking. This class has changed the way I think about what I write. I do more research now then
I did before this class, and I always try to find a way to acknowledge the other point of view. The
way I see it is that one point of view is never right, it is always a mix between the two sides that
bring the solution to the middle. In my day to day life I always try to see the other persons
perspective before I become too critical of their choices or actions. The way that I think, and the
way that I research effects the way that the audience sees my writing.
When you are writing it is most important to think about your audience. It is the
difference between gettin fired fro yo work for not using da rite theiryre, and no one interested
with interacting with you because you always sound too sophisticated and boring. Thinking
about your audience when writing just means that you know what you should and should not say,
and what language you should use. For example it is a bad idea to use some modern words, (like
Facebook, hashtag, YOLO, selfie etc.) around the older generation, but the younger generation
may not know what a VHS is. Learning how to write to a specific audience was one of the first
things that I learned how to do in my English 1010 class. The first assignment that we had was to
write a couple of short emails to and from a certain situation (like an email to a professor
apologizing for being late, or an email to your boss asking for a raise). This practice was to help
us understand how to write to different audiences. We later were able to demonstrate this skill
more clearly in the Career Interview Project. In this project we had to interview someone in our
prospective field, and then write an informational paper about the career. The audience was
college freshmen who were interested in the career, but did not have much information about the

field. We were also supposed to talk about our preconceptions about the career, as well as any
common misconceptions about the career. Below is my Career Interview, which as you will see
is about being an airline pilot.

For thousands of years, man has looked up to the sky and has dreamed of flying. The
dream of flight even found its way into ancient mythology. The Ancient Greeks did not know
what the sun was, and thought it was the god Apollo flying around in his sun chariot. Then
thousands of years later, man finally achieved his long awaited dream, on November 21st, 1783,
Jean De Rozier was the first person to fly in the air in sustained flight. (Kane 35). Then, 120
years later, in 1903, the first heavier then air device had taken to the skies under its own power
(Kane 63). This great accomplishment was thanks to the selfishness and greediness of those
famed Wright Brothers. Then the next great milestone occurred on May 20th, 1927, Charles
Lindbergh flew across the atlantic ocean, solo (Kane 80). Since then there have been too many
firsts to count, and too many new innovations. Together, these innovations have all lead to a new
career that hundreds of years ago, no one could have even dreamed of. That career is the air
transportation industry, being paid to fly people through the sky.
If being paid to fly through the sky sounds like the best option for a well paying career,
then you have clearly never done any kind of research as to what the career is actually like.

There are a lot of really nice benefits you can get working at Delta. The schedule is one
of the best parts, Shawn Clayton, a first officer at Delta, and person I interviewed for this
assignment said, I love being able to just go and fly for three or four days, and then come home,
and be home for three or four days, or longer. If you get creative, you can organize your
schedule to have a month off, without taking any vacation time (Clayton). Being able to do this
is based solely on seniority, as is everything in the aviation industry. Another great thing is that
you, your spouse, kids, and parents get to fly on Delta anywhere in the world, for free. Although
you do have to pay the taxes if you fly international. Another really great benefit that some
people will love is, work will never follow you home. The only thing you have to do is study on
occasion, but you'll know everything you need to know by heart by this time.
I have had many preconceptions myself, too many to list, but I will list some of the ones
that were very wrong. I always thought it would be easy to become a pilot, yeah you would need
a four year degree, but outside of college and flight training, it was all easy. I was wrong. We had
a guest speaker, Mark Richardson, in one of my aviation classes, who is a pilot for Alaska
Airlines, and he showed us what he had to learn when he first got a job at SkyWest. There was a
large storage box full of three ring binders, each one overflowing with paper. He also said that
before the first class, he was given a packet of information with over 140 different parts to
memorize! If you make it past all the classes, then you get to go back and be tested on it, every 6
months (Richardson)!
Another misconception that most people have is vocabulary. There is a difference
between a captain, a first officer, and a pilot. The captain is first in command, the first officer is
second in command, but they both fly the plane an equal amount of time. You can refer to either

a captain or a first officer as a pilot, but you dont need to be a captain or a first officer to be a
pilot. All you need to be a pilot is a Private Pilot License.
Now for the other preconception everyone has about airline pilots, pay. Everyone
misunderstands the numbers that they hear. I used to think that the salary towards the end of a
career would be around $300,000 a year. That is not too far off if you work your butt off your
whole life. A 12 year captain on the 777 at Delta, flying international, will make $270 per hour
(Delta). Based on a 70 hour work month, and twelve months a year, that is $227,800 a year,
which does not include benefits, hotels, and the 15% on the 401K. All of this sounds good, until
you look at what it took to get that far.
I will now write a rough guide on how to get all of this good pay and benefits.
There are a lot of steps in order to become a captain at Delta Airlines. Lets say you are
just out of high school, and you want to work for the airlines. First you need a four year degree
and flight training. The four year degree is not the hard part. Its just college like everybody else
is doing. Then there is the flight training. That is expensive. You will start with trying to get your
private pilot license, the legal minimum hours you will need is 40 (Federal), but an average is
around 60 or 70. To do this you will need to try to fly at least three days a week, for completion
in around two years, kind of. That means you need to rent an airplane, and hire an instructor, at
$169, and $58 per hour each. That means it costs around $13,500 for your private pilot license
(CornerStone). That is far from all you will need. You will need your instrument rating at around
$11,000, your multi engine add on for around $7,500, your commercial license at around
$50,000, and if you want to instruct students, which is the easiest way to get enough hours, then
you will also need your certified flight instructor (CFI) license, another $8,000, (Cornerstone).

Then you are a little bit closer to your goal of working at Delta and getting a lot of money. You
then need your Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) license, that takes 1,000 hours, and you are
probably at around 300 by now. You will then get a very low paying job for a few years, flying
small cargo planes, or instructing flight students.
Eventually you might get a job at a regional airline, for this example lets say SkyWest,
but your troubles are far from over. You will spend about 3 months going to classes, that you
may or may not be getting paid for. Classes is an understatement. You will go to class from eight
to five. You will learn multiple text book sized books of information in just a few months. You
will memorize more the you thought possible, and they will not hesitate to fire you if show you
are not up to the task. If you are still alive, then you get to go to two practice simulators, before
they let you get on the real simulator. This is when the company will actually start to pay you. At
the real simulator, you will spend the first day learning to fly, on the second and third day the
instructor will fail every part of the aircraft, and expect you to know how to solve all problems.
Then the fourth day is a preparation for the fifth day, where an Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) examiner will sit in the simulator and see how you do when you have all of your systems
fail (Richardson). If you pass, you are now a first officer at a regional airline, congratulations!
This does not mean that your life is good yet. You will still be getting paid very little,
Mark Richardson made only about $13,500 his first year at SkyWest. According to Shawn
Clayton, who worked for SkyWest for 8 years, Their pay [referring to SkyWest] was one of the
top compared to a regional, [and had] good benefits. That just shows that $13,500 is top of the
line for new pilots. Though at this point you start getting raises. Your first year is $30 an hour,
but the second year is $40 an hour (SkyWest). Now those numbers may sound good, but dont

forget you get paid for about 70 hour months. You are also still going to have to go in for training
review every few months. However, life is not great, because the odds are that you will be based
in a city that you do not live in, so you will have to commute to work. This part is complicated so
I will try to simplify it. Every pilot can fly on any airline for free. There is a seat in the cockpit
called the, jump seat, that is reserved for commuting pilots. If there are empty seats in the back
you can sit there instead, even if that seat is in first class. You will need to commute to whatever
city you are based out of, whenever your schedule says you need to be there. However, if you are
scheduled to leave in the morning, you will need to fly out the night before. You will also need a
place to stay the night, either a cheap hotel, or a crash pad. A crash pad is a small two bedroom
apartment, shared between about 11 other pilots, that you can pay a cheap monthly rate for
(Clayton).
There is another type of scheduling called reserve, there is short reserve and long reserve.
Short reserve means if they call you, you have less then 2 hours to get to the airport
(Richardson). This means that you will need to be in that city, ready to go, even if they do not
call you. Then there is long reserve, where they have to give you an 11 hour notice (Richardson).
This means that you could stay home, and just fly out if you are needed. The best part of being
on reserve is that you actually get paid as if you were flying the trip (Clayton). Whether you get
short reserve, long reserve, or any reserve is all based on your seniority in the company.
Eventually you will end up being based out of the city that you want to be, but this is all based
off of your seniority in the company.
After a couple of years, you will get promoted to captain, and be put at the bottom of the
seniority food chain, again. You will then be getting paid better. First year captains at SkyWest

make $65 a hour, and after 5 years it is $77 an hour (SkyWest). How long it takes to become
captain depends on whether the company grows, and if the people above you are retiring/going
to another company. At this point you will start building up your captain time, until you can put
in your application to a major airline like Delta, and you get called in for an interview. You then
might get the job, and be able to go over their training, and have to forget everything you've
learned. Not to mention that you are now a first officer, rather than captain. The pay there is a lot
better, the first year pay for a first officer is $70 an hour, and it goes up to $107 the next year
(Delta). The first year you are considered on probation, which is where they are deciding
whether or not to keep you as a first officer. Once you have flown 1,000 hours, or worked for
Delta for a year, then you can get off of probation, and get normal pay (Clayton). Once you are a
first officer, you are at the bottom of the seniority food chain, yet again. To keep moving up, you
just have to wait for the people above you to retire, or for the company to expand more. Then
you can be promoted to captain, and eventually be moved to the 777, since that pays the most,
and that is all you are after. After 10 years as captain on the 777, you are making $266 per hour,
(Delta). By this time you are well into your 40s or 50s, and have missed your whole life just
trying to get more money.
The point that I am trying to make is that becoming a well paid pilot takes a lot of time,
and if you are only in it for the money, you will end up being miserable your whole life, and you
will hate your job. You can have a good career if you take two pieces of advice, Have a passion
for it, because if you hate your job, you are going to hate life, [] have a great attitude, that will
do you wonders (Clayton). If you are interested only in the money, aviation is not the place to
go. My Air Transportation professor always says, How do you get a small fortune in aviation?

Start with a big one! (Boyes). If you have a passion for aviation, if it has gotten into your blood
and wont leave, then this is the career for you.

Works Cited
Boyes, Bruce. Salt Lake Community College Professor. 12 November, 2015
Clayton, Shawn. Personal Interview. 5 November 2015.
CornerStone Aviation. Billing Sheet. Print.
Delta Air Lines Airlinepilotcentral. 28 October, 2015. Web. 9 November, 2015.
Federal Aviation Administration, Part 61 Federal Aviation Regulations. 6 November,
2015. Web. 9 November, 2015.
Kane, Robert M. Air Transportation. 15th. ed. Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing
Company 2007. Print.
Richardson, Mark. Class presentation. 9 November, 2015.
SkyWest. Airlinepilotcentral. 26 October, 2015. Web. 9 November, 2015.

Another skill that I was able to improve on from my English 1010 class was the ability to
proof read my assignments, and make both small and big changes to improve the end product. I

have two examples of this, the first is my Restaurant Review. After I turned in my first draft, I
got a lot lower grade then I had wanted. I then went to work on the organization of my project,
adding transitions, explaining things I had left out, and was able to get a final product I was
happy with. In the end my Restaurant Review made a lot more sense, and when I turned in my
second draft, I was able to get a grade I was happy with. Another example of my ability to proof
read my assignments was the Career Interview project. We did this assignment differently, in that
every student got about 20 minutes of one on one time with the professor. During my time, I
learned how to fix and notice a problem that occurred a lot during my writing. That problem was
run on sentences. Because of this assignment, I have gotten a lot better at keeping my sentences
short sweet and to the point. These simple skills I improved are able to help my audience
understand my writing, and the point I am trying to make.
I am able to apply what I learned in this class to other classes quite easily. One way is that
in other classes I still have to write reports. Since I am better at proof reading, it makes my
reports easier to understand, and it makes my point easier to understand. Another way that I
apply what I learned from English 1010 to other classes and life is organization. I have to give
presentations in many of my other classes, and the way that I organize the presentations changes
how easily the audience can understand what I am trying to say. The way that this was explained
in class was that you have to guide your audience from topic to topic, almost slow enough that
they do not notice that you've switched topics.
In the end, I am really glade that I took this English 1010 class. It is the most useful class
I have taken this semester, and even so far in college. The reason is that the skills that I learned

will be able to transfer to all areas of my life. These skills will help me succeed in the little
things, which lead to my overall success in life.