Ryan Connors

Prior to coming to the Air Force Academy, I split my time between four things: my work as a New Jersey EMT, school, athletics, and editorial and production work for magazines, yearbooks, and journals. From these activities, I found being an editor to be the most rewarding. Though saving lives made an enormous difference in how I see the world today, I think the opinions of others all culminating into a single work broadened my horizons even more so. As an EMT I learned about personal development and I was able to deepen my lines of thinking about situations as they relate to me. However, as an editor, I evaluated the prose and content of those submitting pieces while at the same time enlightening myself to perspectives I hadn't even considered. This development, an interpersonal growth, is what really molded me into who I am today. I search for validity in arguments, though I may disagree with them.

If someone can defend their point of view and prove to me they aren't blindly following an ideology, I gladly listen to what they have to say. Good writing should do the same: make a point and defend it. I took what I learned about leadership and persuasive speaking and writing with me to the Air Force Academy, becoming the President of the Class of 2018 and joining the Sabre Drill Team, acting as a representative for the Air Force around the globe. I am a Legal Studies Major here at the Academy and I look forward to a career in Combat Rescue with the Air Force followed by Law School and a career in politics. I edit and write for the Odyssey because I feel Cadets at the Academy, often boasted to be the best and brightest students from around the country, are unrepresented in popular media. The Odyssey is the first real opportunity Cadets may have to express themselves in a novel and progressive way. Online articles and blogs are the way of the future.