Faith Cooper

I would say it's a mix of my family and my own internal drive. My family has always been my biggest supporters - they've always been there for me, helping me through everything. Every time I would feel so defeated, I would talk to my family or even talk to my friends who are doing the same exact career, and they would really help me through those hard moments to help me persevere and continue forward. On a personal level, if this is something I want to do, I've got to keep going forward and keep moving forward. There's always that light at the end of the tunnel, especially in these jobs. You just have to think about what's the next thing that I gotta do and keep working towards it. That was always a huge motivation of mine, just thinking about what that end goal essentially looks like to me. Now that I've persevered through that and I'm now getting paid and having a great job through it, it was so worth it. I'm glad that I didn't give up in those moments.

The best career advice I've received is about being authentic - being who you are while still maintaining professionalism - and grounding yourself and maintaining discipline through it all. Especially with aviation, there comes a time where you really have to sit down and discipline yourself, work through the tough stuff, and not give up. If I had given up, I would not be where I'm at today. I've had a lot of moments where I was like, this is tough, I want to give up so, so much right now, but you've got to push it through, see it through, and discipline yourself to work hard towards it. That was some really big stuff for me.

I actually love this question, because this is something that I wish I would have been told myself going through it at the beginning. First, understand the responsibility that it takes to be a pilot and own it. I feel like a lot of people when they're going through aviation at the beginning don't realize how much responsibility is going into being a pilot. Second, discipline yourself, really. Yes, there are moments where you want to go and have fun and do all these things, but in the moment, if you want to see this career through, you've got to be able to sit down with yourself and work hard through these times, and I promise you, it's gonna be so rewarding in the end. But also, don't discipline yourself so much so that you don't have a life. You still gotta have that work-life balance. That's something I'd also give advice for - finding that work-life balance within aviation so that you're not losing it trying to study all the time. You're still building your community with people and studying with them.

Some of the biggest challenges I'm facing right now in my current CFI job is trying to figure out how people learn differently. When you teach people individually, you have to figure out, okay, if I present this information to one person, are they going to receive it the same as another person? It's really tricky trying to figure out if I present this information or try to teach them this way and they're not understanding, I gotta be creative and figure out a different way on how to teach them - redirect and try to figure out what works best for them. Outside of the CFI job, going from CFI to the regional airlines right now is pretty tricky. The airlines are starting to open up a little bit more to offering jobs, but sometimes it can be really challenging because there's a lot of really good pilots - it's very competitive right now. What's tricky about aviation is it kind of fluctuates, it goes up and down with the hiring process. Sometimes they're wanting to hire a bunch of people all in one go, and you just kind of have to have the right time to go into it. Sometimes the airlines are just not hiring anybody because they've got enough pilots. That can be tricky too, trying to really put yourself out there and network.

Being caring is a really big one for me, because I feel like a lot of people just don't receive a lot of care sometimes, especially when I'm dealing with college students. I can tell that sometimes their moods can change, and if I'm matching their mood of maybe having a rough day and they're in a mood, and I start to go into a mood because they're in a mood, it doesn't work out. I need to show more of my caring side towards them, and that just completely changes how they perform when they fly, when they're starting to feel like they are cared for and listened to. Also, holding integrity is a really big core value of mine, just having integrity and making sure that you're completely honest. Even going through aviation, I've learned you make a lot of mistakes along the way, and it's best not to hide them - it's best to be forthcoming and honest with those mistakes. The results of it ends up a lot better than just hiding it.