Capstone Final Reflection

Alvin Jung

Through my journey of completing my capstone project I have learned a lot about my subject,
my skill sets, and myself. One thing I learned about my subject is that there are three main pathways to
become a pilot which was either enlisting in the military, attending aviation college, or flying school. An
important skill set that I used to complete this capstone was my communication skills. Without it, I
would not have been able to do the interview with pilot Joe Schweers. I also learned that I have great
time management skills and I never felt overwhelmed with assignments during this course because of it.

This project was relevant to me because my dream and current goal is to one day become a pilot
for the military, cargo, or airline. I do not care which, I just want to fly and travel the world as my job.
My biggest fear is working a 9-5 job for the rest of my life and I want to live a life that is interesting. I
believe that pilots live a unique lifestyle compared to other jobs. I have dreamed to become a pilot since
grade 8 and have been pushing myself to do well in school since then.

I believe that I demonstrated the six core competencies throughout this project with proficiency.
For personal awareness & responsibility I showed good self-determination by motivating myself to finish
assignments with class time given so that I have time to do other things at home. I was setting goals and
regulating my emotions so I that I don’t get so stressed from assignments by taking regular breaks. I
showed social responsibility by contributing to group activities. I was building relationships with my
classmates and valuing their thoughts and ideas as well. Critical thinking was shown by my completed
CLC assignments which I was able to analyze and draw conclusions to the question being asked like the
budget assignments. I was able to explore new ways to represent my learning by doing an interview
with pilot Joe. I think that I am most weak at creative thinking, however I showed it by generating and
developing ideas to things like how I will be present my capstone project. I also showed creative thinking
when we did our first group assignment which was making, designing cards and I shared lots of ideas to
the group. I demonstrated communication skills by connecting with pilot Joe Schweers for a virtual
interview where I asked him many questions to do with pilots. I also showed communication skills with
my classmates during the ignite presentations and the mentor job interview with the grade 10s. Finally,
for personal & cultural identity, I demonstrated this core competency by being able to choose the topic I
want my capstone project to be because I understand what I value and what is important to me. I know
my strengths and weaknesses and how to use my strengths to my advantage. I am good at staying on
task and finishing assignments before the due date and that naturally led me to have good time
management.

The impact that the capstone project had on me was quite significant. I have done in-depth
research about becoming a pilot which is my dream and was even able to talk to a real pilot 1 on 1. This
project helped my dream to become a pilot to become concrete and fed me more motivation to work
harder and become a pilot in the future.

Thinking about my whole process and my finished product, I am most proud of the interview
video that I was able to create. I learned so many valuable and fun facts about pilots that makes me
eager to become one as well. Before scheduling the interview, I had thoughts about doing a different
project because I was not so comfortable talking to a stranger virtually but now that I have finished, I am
so glad that I was able to gain confidence to do it.
 A problem that I encountered during my capstone journey was Joe not being able to join my
zoom call meeting. At first, I was planning to do the virtual interview through an app called zoom, but
Joe was not able to join for some reason. To solve this problem, we used Microsoft Teams instead with a
little bit of help from Mrs. Schweers hosting the meeting.

One thing I wish to change about my finished product is that I wish the video were able to get
edited and posted it on YouTube. This was not possible because I was not able to get a copy of the
Teams meeting because it was hosted and posted by Mrs. Schweers. So, the video ended up as a long
unedited video to watch on a Microsoft website link. I was also not able to get permission by Joe to post
it on social media (YouTube) because he was worried that it may cause some trouble to his regulations
with Air Canada.

My advice to a student who will be completing their Capstone Project next year would be to
finish the CLC assignments as soon as possible so that you have the maximum amount of time to work
on your capstone. Secondly, don’t be stressed if you have not chosen a capstone in the beginning and
get an idea of what to do by thinking about the thing you enjoy doing or look at ideas that your other
classmates are doing. Lastly, always seek for help if you are stuck because I got my idea from Mrs. Haber
to gather my information by doing an interview with Joe.

The virtual interview with Joe was obviously my main source of research that helped me the
most. He answered many questions I had for pilots but another source that helped me would be the
video that a pilot has took on YouTube that showcased a day in the life of an airline pilot. It gave me an
understanding of what the work hours are like for a pilot.

One thing about my approach to my project that I wish I could change would be to be able to
job shadow an actual pilot in real life but due to the pandemic I was not able to contact a pilot to do it. I
feel like being with a pilot in person and maybe even going on a flight would’ve been much cooler. Then
I would’ve been able to ask my interview questions in person while job shadowing.