Pre-ATC (1)

Well hello!
Welcome to my first attempt at this whole blogging thing.  My whole intent and purpose is to let people know what the heck to expect, yes it rhymes, when it comes to the ATC career as through my eyes.  More people will go terminal than en-route because of several reasons which I will explain later.  This first blog is more of an intro of me to you.  Most of you will know this, some maybe if this becomes a good read, will not.


First thing first.  My name is Patrick and I'm originally from Perrysburg, Ohio.  Grew up there with aspirations to become a pilot.  Started pilot training in August of 2000 and was loving it.  Some complications with the school arose, as well as 9/11, and I had second thoughts about the future of being a pilot.  Long story short, I went to Florida to finish up my pilot credentials and hope for a job flying.  After several of friends reported back to me that they were miserable, I decided to pursue other things.  Another long drawn out story short, I was flying, well okay, I wasn't flying at all in Swainsboro, GA at a 'lil ma/pa flight school and I thought being a truck driver would be fun.  Another long story short, after three years 100+ lbs of weight gain, my health, my determination, and ultimately my will to continue to live like that dwindled.  I guess you could say a higher power finally said, "Rock Bottom?  I'll give ye a push."  And viola, I set on air traffic control.


Now I make split second decisions and most work out in the long run when it comes to my life, and ATC seemed like a great decision.  However, I did not realize that my past would come back to haunt me.  Call me naive to not know that was going to happen.  The complications I mentioned earlier were the school decided for me that I should think about my grades other than partying.  Well 8 years later I finally learned that lesson and turned my life around.


With better grades under my belt, I was able to apply to schools of my choosing and even get scholarships.  I decided on University of North Dakota mainly for the price/benefit compared to other prestigious schools in much much warmer climate.  However, its not as bad as some think. sure the winters are cold but you get used to it pretty quickly.


UND has many pluses along with some minuses.  I'm not here to bad mouth anyone and what I think are minuses may not be to some people.  The PLUSES are the great teaching staff that make sure you have fun while learning some tough subjects.  They are all relaxed and create a nice learning environment where you can question what you hear without fear of being belittled.  Its not like a class that you have had before with large amounts of general knowledge, everyone is new and starting from scratch.  However, because this is a blog geared toward en-route training, one note I wish UND would give as an option would be to have a more serious class for en-route.  The only class that is remotely in-depth for en-route is the non-radar class.  If you are new, or in the line to get hired, heed this warning: PAY ATTENTION TO NON-RADAR!!  You will see that many times in this blog.  Here it is again:  PAY ATTENTION TO NON-RADAR!!


Ok, well that is my quick intro to this blog and you got some background information on me to see where I am coming from. 


Up next:


ToL - FoL