Controlling Nerves During Evals

[sma]

Everyone says that passing your evals at the end of the academy comes down to being able to control your nerves, but I haven't seen much in the way of advice on HOW to do that. Please share your experiences/advice on what you did to walk into your evals in a confident and calm manner. I'll start off by posting a couple things I came across which I thought could be applicable in this situation:

 

[KnockKnock]

A group of us walked laps around the building when we weren't doing evals and right before my runs I found a corner in the hallway where no one was and did burpees. Worked like a charm.

 

[Maintainvfr]

Everyone says that passing your evals at the end of the academy comes down to being able to control your nerves, but I haven't seen much in the way of advice on HOW to do that. Please share your experiences/advice on what you did to walk into your evals in a confident and calm manner. I'll start off by posting a couple things I came across which I thought could be applicable in this situation:

It's really helpful to know going in that the evals are easier than the problems you've run the few days prior. They're not trying to trick you, they're just trying to make sure you're getting it. As long as you use the tools you've been practicing over the last month or two, you're going to leave feeling like they loaded a problem from weeks ago.

Also, it really helps to remember the planes aren't real. If you delay someone or make them spin a few times, there's no pilot to be upset. Nothing you do in there affects anything outside of that room. Just keep working.

 

[32andBelow]

A group of us walked laps around the building when we weren't doing evals and right before my runs I found a corner in the hallway where no one was and did burpees. Worked like a charm.

Some of the room monitors won’t let you do this. Just FYI.

 

[MJ]

Also, it really helps to remember the planes aren't real. If you delay someone or make them spin a few times, there's no pilot to be upset. Nothing you do in there affects anything outside of that room. Just keep working.

Echoing this sentiment. I teach/use this in the real world too. Recognize when you're beginning to feel overwhelmed, take a breath, slow down, and evaluate the situation. Most of the time you think the situation is worse than it really is because your brain is saying GOGOGOGOGO.

 

[wrench978]

It's really helpful to know going in that the evals are easier than the problems you've run the few days prior. They're not trying to trick you, they're just trying to make sure you're getting it. As long as you use the tools you've been practicing over the last month or two, you're going to leave feeling like they loaded a problem from weeks ago.

Also, it really helps to remember the planes aren't real. If you delay someone or make them spin a few times, there's no pilot to be upset. Nothing you do in there affects anything outside of that room. Just keep working.

is this actually true? I had kinda heard that before I started running problems, but lately all Ive heard is that the problems are as tough as the last ones we will run. I know its kinda subjective. Non-radar seemed way easier than the upper problems we ran.

 

[twn]

is this actually true? I had kinda heard that before I started running problems, but lately all Ive heard is that the problems are as tough as the last ones we will run. I know its kinda subjective. Non-radar seemed way easier than the upper problems we ran.

Its true, evals were easy. I would say they were comparable to problems that you seen in the end of 8 through early 10s. I found the whole radar portion easy though. Nr was a bitch.

 

[TushingPin]

Know your stuff inside and out. Knowledge is power. If you know your stuff inside and out and just do what you were trained to do. You'll be fine. Good luck man!

Everyone says that passing your evals at the end of the academy comes down to being able to control your nerves, but I haven't seen much in the way of advice on HOW to do that. Please share your experiences/advice on what you did to walk into your evals in a confident and calm manner. I'll start off by posting a couple things I came across which I thought could be applicable in this situation:

View attachment 1636

 

[DankVectorz]

Smoke a bowl, chug a 40, have your buddy slap you in the face, walk in there in and rock that shit.

 

[wrench978]

Its true, evals were easy. I would say they were comparable to problems that you seen in the end of 8 through early 10s. I found the whole radar portion easy though. Nr was a bitch.

good to know. thanks

 

[GWE8613]

good to know. thanks

I personally would disagree, the problems were not terrible but easily close to the complexity leading up to evals. Our problems if they havent changed since last year had a few things we'd never seen before. Small but still new. We had ~60% failure rate.

 

[32andBelow]

What did you have that wasn’t taught? That wasn’t the case for us and shouldn’t be the case.

 

[sizziano]

For tower the evals are definitely easier than 10-13. Probably complexity of 10 with traffic level of 7.

 

[N737ER]

What did you have that wasn’t taught? That wasn’t the case for us and shouldn’t be the case.

Granted it was back in 2014. In our Non-Radar Eval one classmate had a problem where 75% of his traffic involved altitudes FL180 and above. It might not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it was something they briefed over in class, though not something that we had experience with in any of the non-radar scenarios we ran.

 

[32andBelow]

Granted it was back in 2014. In our Non-Radar Eval one classmate had a problem where 75% of his traffic involved altitudes FL180 and above. It might not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it was something they briefed over in class, though not something that we had experience with in any of the non-radar scenarios we ran.

Oh there’s no tricks like that anymore. I don’t think anyone goes above 17 in non radar. The only thing we used altimeters for were check ins and reading the weather. They really have tried to make it more fare. Or they they have taken out anything that’s easily TRd

 

[Wturner]

It’s funny you mention that because just 6 months ago at the academy I wrote on my end of course eval that the academy should be offering techniques to students on how to maintain nerves. I went through the same thing, past students and even instructors telling me that maintaining my nerves was the key to passing the evals, but no one gave me advice on how to do that, so I had to figure it out on my own. This article helped me a lot: How to Stay Calm Under Pressure When Things Are Falling Apart
Basically, everyone has different techniques that help them more than others. For me it was all about staying positive, I told myself that I was going to pass, stayed away from any negative thoughts, and kept myself busy(sudoku, crosswords, games) while waiting in the classroom for my turn to take the eval. Also as mentioned above, knowledge is power, the more phraseology and rules you know the more confident you’ll be going in.

 

[sizziano]

It’s funny you mention that because just 6 months ago at the academy I wrote on my end of course eval that the academy should be offering techniques to students on how to maintain nerves. I went through the same thing, past students and even instructors telling me that maintaining my nerves was the key to passing the evals, but no one gave me advice on how to do that, so I had to figure it out on my own. This article helped me a lot: How to Stay Calm Under Pressure When Things Are Falling Apart
Basically, everyone has different techniques that help them more than others. For me it was all about staying positive, I told myself that I was going to pass, stayed away from any negative thoughts, and kept myself busy(sudoku, crosswords, games) while waiting in the classroom for my turn to take the eval. Also as mentioned above, knowledge is power, the more phraseology and rules you know the more confident you’ll be going in.

Our first day at CAMI they actually spent like 1 hour going over stress mitigation techniques so it seems they're listening.

 

[Wturner]

That’s certainly good to hear!

 

[Hotvedt]

I didn't find the evaluation simulator to be that difficult. The last few sims you run are way harder than the final, in my opinion. Just take a deep breath. Once you are a few minutes in, all the anxiety will go away.

 

[bceltics933]

Yeah, the nerves don’t go away until you’re sitting in the chair, after a few minutes you should be in the zone. and then the nerves come back as soon as they make you wait in the hall for your grades...