As the end of high school is slowly approaching many different seniors are finding new career paths. For most of us, colleges and universities are in our future. However, for others, career oriented futures have always been prevalent in their lives.

Ask Senior Matt Krattenmaker. He aspires to be a pilot and fly commercial planes, commonly at airports.

“I take a Ground School at Western Air Flight Academy,” Krattenmaker says. “I want to be a pilot for airlines.”

Flight school includes many different skills that take a long time to acquire and become good at.

“During the flying portion, we work on maneuvers and landings. We also work on the communication with other aircrafts and towers,” states Krattenmaker.

Instead of attending a university or college in order to achieve this goal, Krattenmaker just needs to obtain his flight certificate. As easy as this sounds, it requires a lot of hard work and effort. There are a lot of different written tests as well as flight tests.  The training requires 40 hours of flight time, 20 with an instructor, 20 without.

“In order to become a pilot you have to go through the ground school and get your license. But if you want to go further, it’s recommended to go through an aviation college like Embry Riddle,” Krattenmaker continues. “At Ground school we learn about all of the rules and regulations of flight, as well as how to do the maneuvers.”

Ultimately pursuing a degree or even a career requires a lot of true dedication. Some individuals find themselves an instant connection with a certain field of choice where as others are as lost as they were in elementary school. At the end of the day, there are many different diversely striven students at Ralston Valley with unique passions and skills, we just need to find them.