Sam Ruggio (2022) gained a range of great experience from his time in ERAU's GSIS program, from ROTC to internships with Boeing. After graduating, he worked for 2 years at Boeing, but then decided to go back to school. He's now working on a graduate degree in International Relations at George Washington University. Writing and communication have been central to both career tracks, whether its writing technical reports or policy documents. Sam's advice to current Eagles is, even if you don't like writing, those COM courses are going to be important! Speaking and writing are key skills for whatever you want to do with your professional life.
Episode Transcript:
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Abby:
Hello everybody, and welcome back today. We are joined with Sam Ruggio and Sam, why don't you give a little bit of background about yourself?
Samuel:
Yeah, thanks for having me on. Hello everyone. Yeah. My name is Samuel Ruggio. I was the class of 22, at Embry Riddle Prescott, Arizona and I graduated with a yes and global security intelligence minors in defense studies, international relations and cyber security. Yeah, it was an honestly, have great time looking back at everything I did at riddle. I was in army. ROTC for a bit. Shout out to the army program there and made all my friends through there and through all my other classes. And hindsight, you know, I do miss Prescott. It was a nice small town, a lot of outdoors there, and a lot of fun stuff to do in Arizona, right.
Abby:
Oh, that's awesome. Very fun that you kind of got to do your major. But also, the Army ROTC, good way to get involved. And do you have a favorite memory from your time at Embry? Riddle you'd like to share?
Samuel:
I get to Prescott as a freshman, and within a week, a monsoon hits, and I had never seen it rain that hard, you know, lightning and just nonstop downpour. And I was just standing there outside my dorm, and I think it was Mingus Mountain, and I was just sitting there, like, wow, okay, this is what it's gonna be like. And so, I wasn't used to that. And then when I was a junior, you know, you think of Arizona. You think of like the desert moats, hot, and etc., but grass gets the high desert. But even still, you know, I was like, no, that gets a little hot. So, I wake up my junior year. So that's 2021 January. I look outside and it's just as wide it can be. It's a blizzard. You can't see anything. And I was like, you have the contrast, like you go an hour and a half south to Phoenix, the hottest you can be one of the hottest places in the America. You go to Prescott in the in January, in the winter, you have a blizzard coming through town. It's just you get everything there. So, the weather was definitely, I remember, and I like to tell people about because they never think of Arizona as a snowy or rainy state.
Abby:
Right, right? Yeah. Prescott weather is definitely something to adjust to when you first move out there and now switching to your current job. What do you currently do?
Samuel:
Yeah. So, for the past two years, I was working in St Louis, Missouri, at Boeing Defense and Industrial Security Specialist. So, I applied to the Boeing Security and Fire Protection internship, and I got it, and it was all virtual. That was the summer of 2021 so between my junior and senior years. And so, after I graduated, I hit up my old manager and was like, you got any positions open? She's like, oh, you know, we have one in St Louis, Missouri. And I was like, I've never been to the Midwest. Okay, sure. So, I took that job, and I started as an associate Industrial Security Specialist, and that was a definitely interesting job. You're working like my first job out of college, one of the biggest companies in America, one of the two duopoly aircraft manufacturers in the world. You have Boeing and Airbus. And I worked for Boeing, and it was really interesting. I worked a lot on inspections, on compliance with federal regulations for defense, things, not for commercial. So, I'm my hands are clean of whatever's going on over there. So, I worked for them. I got promoted. Was around F eighteens and F fifteens a lot, and I did use a lot of writing for some investigations and some reports. So, I worked for them for two years. In August, I actually left buying to come to grad school. So right now, I'm going to George Washington University, Washington DC, studying, getting my master’s in international Affairs, focusing on Europe, Russia and Eurasia. So, jumping back into the fire in terms of college work.
Abby:
Right? That's awesome, and it's so important to get those experiences while you're still young and able to do all of that.
Samuel:
Yeah, for sure.
Abby:
Yeah. And now, what does a typical day look like, either working at Boeing or as a grad student?
Samuel:
Yeah, so I'll go with Boeing first. My schedule of Boeing was a was it 980 schedule. So, it worked nine hours one week. So, I'd work nine hours, you know, Monday through Thursday, and I get that Friday off, and it'd be every other Friday, then I'd work nine hours the other week, and the Friday I don't get off was eight hours. So, it's just a normal hour schedule. Get to work around seven, so pretty early in the morning. Running check emails. You know, if I have a case open, we did these things called government security investigations. So, if there are any infractions or violations, we worked with a lot of engineers. So, some of the engineers or workers were handling certain information, we'd have to open a case on them. But if nothing else was going on, I'd be looking at my emails, giving any answers to security questions, performing checking on contracts, things like that, and I'd work until again, the nine-hour schedule around four, if it was an eight hour day 330, or three. Yeah. So, it was an early wake up, but you got off a little bit earlier than normal people as well. Go to the gym after that and then go home. It's a pretty busy day. So there and there was, there's a fair amount of doing St Louis. I drove to Louisville a lot because I had some family that lived there. So that was while I was working at Boeing and grad school. Applied to a lot of jobs. I have a bunch of applications out for internships for this coming summer that I stand a pretty good chance at. And I have an application with my institute, so the Institute of year oppression and Eurasian Affairs for a research assistant. So, I did an interview week or two ago for the Central Asia Studies Program, which is pretty interesting, delve into a lot of information about different regions of the world. My classes for grad school are always in the evenings, which gives people time to have a full time or part time job in the day five o'clock five times when classes usually i Yeah, it's definitely a curve getting back into schoolwork again after being out of it for two years, and a lot less classes, a lot less assignments, but that just means that those assignments way more on your grade. So, you have to, you know, be very pay a lot of attention to the guidelines, the syllabus, and ask a lot of questions, for sure.
Abby:
Right, right? It definitely can be tricky transitioning back into school life after being out of it for a few years. But shifting focus. Do you get to travel with this job? Or is it mainly just research based?
Samuel:
For the yeah for the one with the research assistant it's mostly research. We may be meeting with customers or clients or the people sponsoring us within DC, but it's mostly research. Within my program, we do have a cornerstone, which is kind of like, if you don't want to do a thesis, do the cornerstone, a lot of people choose an area that they're interested in in the world, and they try to align you with people, all other people that are interested in that area, and if you can get the funding for and you can pitch it to certain customers or sponsors, you can actually travel for that. Since my focus is Europe, Russia and Eurasia, it might be a little hard right now. I graduate May 2026 hopefully something calms down or something opens up. But that's, that's the primary thing for travel in my program, there's some internships that might let me do it, but it's mostly just research and staying in the DC area.
Abby:
And now focusing on the writing portion of your everyday life. Are you able to tie writing in a lot?
Samuel:
Oh yeah. I mean, I have an econ class, but outside of that history, there's a lot of writing. My Cornerstone primary class, a bunch like that. Whole class, all your grades are just writing. I mean, attendance too, but it's, it's right. And I have another class that's just all writing, called writing for international policy makers. So that's a lot it's gonna this degree is primarily writing, which I've finally gotten back into, into the loop of doing after two years. But even while I worked at Boeing, it was a lot of writing, writing the investigative reports, writing a lot of emails, writing a lot of letters, which allowed people to carry certain information to certain facilities and just conveying myself in a professional manner. So, I didn't totally lose that skill. And writing is something I mean, no matter what field you're going into, you're gonna need to know how to write, know how to communicate with other people. So that's definitely, definitely a skill I just use for everything pretty much.
Abby:
Have you noticed any differences or similarities between like writing you've done when you your time at Boeing transitioning into grad school or back at Embry Riddle?
Samuel:
I would say similarity between all of them is being pretty succinct. So, like at Riddle. I remember taking a class with Professor Avery. Both classes really focused on very succinct, either one to two pages, getting straight to the point. And, you know, and Boeing, when I was writing reports, it would never be longer. Than two pages in grad school, besides my cornerstone, most of our teachers are from the State Department. And the thing with any federal government job, really, is no one likes to read, say, two pages Max, for writing memos, for writing small reports. You just get straight to the point, you outline the primary details, what you need to know, and what do you think is the result of the event? Or what do you think the outcome is? So being very, very short and to the point is something that's been consistent with all of these, and then doing investigative stuff with Professor Saquella, interviewing techniques and tactics. That one was actually one of the most crucial ones I had, because when I was interviewing people at Boeing for security infractions violations, you really need to know how to talk to talk to someone, take notes, double back on details and things they might have said or missed, put a story together and put a narrative together. They're all similar. I don't do much interviewing now. It's all writing. And one thing that I never did, I guess, unless they've changed it, I never did Chicago style and at Riddle, and they do that here, so I've noticed it's not too different in terms of writing, but it's something I getting used to now.
Abby:
Right, right, yeah, and with writing stuff that is very short and to the point, have you found that word choice plays a bigger role in in your writing?
Samuel:
Yes, absolutely. Like, there's a saying, I think, in the army, or in the military in general, that just applies to everything, is use precise words precisely you want to be as accurate and, on the point, as you can. And there's, you know, the English language is one of the most complex and vocabulary intensive languages, because it's combination of a Latin Germanic so it really draws from everything, and you have a lot of very precise words that have different roots, and you honestly keep it to a page, so you have the paragraph outlining situation, paragraph getting into some of the details, paragraph on suggestions or how it will affect policy. That's one of the main things about using word choice and being precise with what you're saying, right.
Abby:
Awesome. And so that leads me right into my last question that I have for you today, Sam, do you have any advice that you'd like to give our current eagles?
Samuel:
Yeah, I would say to definitely focus on those writing classes. And I know they were tough, and you know, a lot of people don't like writing, but it's one of the most essential skills you're going to need in the workplace, whether you're in STEM, whether you're flying, whether you're in security intelligence, like myself, especially security intelligence, you're going to know how to write and just communication in general, you're going to know how to Talk to people. I took a remember taking speech class at riddle, and I definitely helped, because you're going to have to be in front of groups of people, whether you're flying talking to passengers, and whether you're talking to a meeting about what you're working on in whatever STEM field, and then myself giving a brief to an executive or a customer, you're gonna need to know your material in and out, and not have known how to talk to people. So, it's that's the advice I would give to any brutal students going into the workplace.
Abby:
Perfect. And yes, that is great advice. It is so important to be able to write and communicate effectively in life, just in general. But that wraps up this week's episode of What's the word we want to give Sam a big thank you for being on with us this week. If you're new to our podcast, you can find us at Spotify, YouTube or Apple Music, and be sure to stay tuned for more.
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Amelia:
This podcast is supported by the Department of Humanities and Communication at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. Abigail Bradberry is our host and producer. Matthew Haslam is the department chair, and I'm Amelia Chesley, Assistant Professor of professional writing. The intro and outro music is Wanderer by Aylex, many thanks to the Prescott campus Writing and Design Lab for hosting our transcripts. Find us where most podcasts are found, and please do reach out if you are a Prescott campus alumnus, we'd love to feature you in a future episode.
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