What's The Word? Eagle Alumni Spotlight Podcast: Nicole Drake

Owen:
Hello everyone. Welcome back to What's the Word. My name is Owen Smith, your host, and today I'm here with Nicole. Thank you, Nicole, for joining us today on the podcast.

Nicole:
You're welcome.

Owen:
So to begin, would you be able to tell me a little bit about yourself?

Nicole:
So hi. My name is Nicole Drake. I graduated with aerospace engineering degree aerotrack Back in 2020, covid year after I did a loop outside in the industry. Now I'm back at Embry Riddle, being an advisor for the College of aviation.

Owen:
Awesome. That's a very interesting path. Would you be able to tell me a little bit about your time after graduation, until you came back here to work with us on academic advising.

Nicole:
So like I said, unfortunately, I graduate during covid. Yes, everything was either shut down, closed, not hiring. Very sad during those time, I did a couple years worth of customer service job, which is completely unrelated to what I did here at Embry Riddle. And then I joined a company in Phoenix who is the suppliers for the semiconductor factory that's already that's currently building there. I was helping them set up with their initial groundwork. So a lot of administrative tasks, a lot of translating tasks. But then after a year of that, I feel like I still like the higher ed or education field a lot more. So I came back, taught fourth and fifth career science for a year, and then landed a job here.

Owen:
So what is your favorite memory from your time here at riddle?

Nicole:
My favorite memory, I would say it will definitely be the capstone. Capstone. Our capstone was design and amphibious multi use aircraft. Our aircraft was assigned to carry either firefighter payload or water to firefighters, because we have a lot of those here. We do in Arizona, starting preliminary, pre prelim, we actually were able to do all that on campus that was before covid. We did all the groundwork research. We ended up 3d printing our model, tested in the winter wind tunnel for a couple times, and then once we get into our detail project couple months in covid happened. Unfortunately, we didn't do all the modifications that we wanted, so we had to predict what the outcome will be, instead of actually testing it interesting in the wind tunnel.

Owen:
So did you do like CFD analysis?

Nicole:
(nods)

Owen:
I gotcha, you're the first person I've talked to where you experienced your final months, I suppose, here at Embry Riddle, during that first few months of covid and the lockdown, all that, all that, not so fun stuff. How were those first few months? Was it all online? Were you all on were you on calls that whole time, pretty much?

Nicole:
We came in, it was spring, and then there was rumors circling around other schools getting shut down, going online. Personally, I feel like Embry Riddle didn't make their decision till very later on, we didn't officially go full online until after spring break.

Owen:
Oh, wow. Okay, so later in March?

Nicole:
Yeah, and then after that, we had to do our capstone meeting all online. We have a time slot where we will have our instructor and the column professors online with us, and then we'll go through our project, talk about project, and with the teammates. It's all through zoom.

Owen:
Interesting. Did you have a zoom symposium type thing? Or, I know, I know there's Capstone symposiums.

Nicole:
Unfortunately, no, it would just win. It was very sad, because we did have that for a prelim, and we get to talk to people from the industry. But during Capstone, it was just our instructor and to come the column professors greeting us. Yeah, so we did it wasn't even with the other team. There was only two teams in that class. So, um, the other team did their own. We did our own. And then after that meeting, after the whole presentations, the professor just kept us individually so we can go, go over our parts. I did stabilities and control, so he asked me about things regarding that topic, and then regarding, you know, how you think the project went?

Owen:
Along those lines, it is interesting to kind of go back to, or go forward to where we are now with your work with academic advising, the College of Aviation, what would you say your favorite part of this, of your job is,

Nicole:
I love talking students. The biggest reason I came here to Embry Riddle was because I'm, like, biggest airplane nerds ever.

Owen:
Yes, and I know quite a few.

Nicole:
Fun to see all the other students, especially pilots, because that was my original goal, yes, to become a pilot. So as you see students that are actively pursuing their dream and also have the same interest in aviation, in order to help them that. It's my favorite part.

Owen:
I see, I see that's very, I guess, I suppose, honorable. A lot of a lot of students here, some of them still need to find their path. And there's, yeah, I'll leave it at that.

Nicole:
It's such a niche school that, you know, we all have that common interest, but this kind of ties into the some of the questions that on the list, but you don't, you're not able to find the people that shares the same interest with you out there.

Owen:
That's why I switched here. I was a finer student. Nobody knew what they want to do. They were just there to party because it was Oregon State University to state school. Party, party, party. But I found out what I want to do being I went out to Florida to watch Artemis one launch, and I was like, that's what I want to do. I was always interested in space, but I never like, was like, that's it. And came here because I knew people here, knew a lot of the people here, I should say, know what they want to do, know where they want to do it, and know kind of how they want to get there, and they're very driven to do so, yeah, okay, so what does, what is your typical I suppose day to day look like here?

Nicole:
Academic Advising is pretty I don't want to use chaotic, because that's such a negative word, but we get really busy sometimes. During our busier season, which is registration that's coming up, we see students a to a through five. Yeah, we have students in and out of all of our office, answering questions, helping them degree planning, helping them getting into classes. Get on waitlist, you know, give them different options of what if, you know you don't get in this class. You can use this one. What does, how does this affect your next semester? So there's a lot of student meetings, a lot of advising and talking to students, because students also come in with other situations, like you know, if they're experiencing something personal, if they're in conflict with their fly instructor, or if they're getting accused of academic dishonesty, things like that? Yes, so we deal with a lot of those too.

Owen:
See, during the semester, I've always been curious. I've never asked myself, but is there like you have registration coming up? What's coming up in less than a month now that's got to be the most, one of the most, if not the most busy times of the semester, is there kind of off parts of the semester as well.

Nicole:
I would say in spring it will be spring break, okay, because students are not on campus, yeah, a lot of times they're off somewhere back home. That's when we use those times to focus on some other topics. Right before, right after spring break, there is spring preview day, yes, for incoming student. So we kind of shift our gears to task like registering incoming students. A lot of a lot more administrative work, but summer is mostly our downtown downtime.

Owen:
Yeah, okay. To kind of tie back into the podcast, or at least my questions here, how do you tie writing into it? Is it a lot of documentation work? Yes, you're nodding.

Nicole
Yeah. Every time we meet with the students, we have to write a summary, notes, okay, of what went on during the meeting, what was discussed, if there's any plan made, what was the plan? Things like that.
Yes, to be able to, I guess, reference when you come back with that student, whatever, next time they do come back
or that say, I'll sick next week, somebody else is seeing that student too. They can also see what went on during the meeting and have a better
idea what's going on, instead of just going, not just blind, I suppose.
So we have a better coverage for students I see.

Owen:
Yeah, that's very good. So it's been a couple years, and I'm sure a lot has changed with curriculum wise. But have you noticed a lot of similarities, or have you noticed any similarities and differences from your time writing within your courses here at the university, to what you're doing within academic advising, or just industry in general?

Nicole:
The writings I took when I was here is more technical focus. Okay, so there's a lot of data, you know, I observed the, you know, the angle of attack was seven degree. It's more a lot of actual numbers compared to writing here is more observations of students emotions, trying to find ways to describe what the students going through more emotionally, rather than technical.

Owen:
So to start wrapping up two more questions for you, what if you would go, if you'd be able to go back and talk to freshman Nicole coming right in, right into college, what would you tell her that you wish you would have known when you were coming into school?

Nicole:
So funny thing, I was kind of in the same boat as you. I transferred here. I didn't start my freshman year here. So coming in two years into the program, I kind of just close myself out to friends or students outside. I just go to school, do my work. If I'm in a project group, then I'll attend the project group meeting. But I didn't put myself out there to meet more people. I tried Career Fair once, and I think that was it okay. So if I can go back to me that just freshly coming into Embry Riddle, I will tell her to put yourself out there, make connections, make friends, keep going back to career fair, that's what I tell my students. Now, it benefits you going there, even as a freshman, because the more you go there, the recruiter notice you more, and most of them are alumni themselves. So even if they don't have something that they can offer from their company, they usually know somebody, yes, that can help you. So definitely put yourself out there, make more friends, keep a good relationship with your professors, because they all have industry relationship.

Dr. Chesley
This podcast is supported by the Department of Humanities and communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. Our hosts and producers are Owen Smith and Leah little. I'm Amelia Chesley, Assistant Professor of professional writing. Many thanks to the Prescott campus writing and Design Lab for hosting our transcripts. The intro and outro music is wanderer by Alex. You can find us where most podcasts are found. And if you are a Prescott campus alumni, please reach out so we can feature you in a future episode. You.