When people ask me what the hardest part of the FAA Academy is, they expect me to say the information overload. Or the map. Or the SOP. And yes, all of those things are real challenges. But none of them are the hardest thing. Not even close.

Let me tell you what I actually saw break students over my five years as an instructor and lead at the Academy — and more importantly, what you can do about it before you ever set foot in Oklahoma City.

When you go through the en route portion of the Academy, they hand you the equivalent of two three-inch binders full of material. Lessons, end-of-lesson tests, background information, procedures — all of it. I used to tell my students on day one: you are about to take a master's course in three months. That is the volume of information they're going to put in front of you.

But here's the thing — the information, as overwhelming as it feels, is actually presented in a fairly well-organized way. Yes, some of it you'll never use again. Some of it is background material that feels disconnected from anything practical. But it builds a foundation, and your instructors walk you through it. It's a lot, but it's manageable with the right approach.

The map isn't the hardest thing either. Most people have never looked at an airspace map before they arrive — unless you've been through a CTI school or have a pilot's background. And now they're giving you two and a half weeks to memorize one well enough to pass a test. That sounds rough, but they give you dedicated time in class to study it. You just have to use that time. And the map matters beyond just passing a test — it's what you're going to be working with for the next three months, so learning it well is worth every minute.

The SOP isn't the hardest thing either, even though you need to know it forwards and backwards — better than your evaluators know it. That's a high bar, but it's an achievable one.

Before I get to the main answer, I want to talk about something that trips a lot of students up along the way: getting a low score on an eval.

It's going to happen. And for most students at the Academy, it will be the first truly low score they've ever received on anything. Most people who make it to Oklahoma City have been high achievers their entire lives. Good students, hard workers, people who are used to performing well when it counts. 

The Academy has a way of humbling all of us.

My first evaluation as a student — I got a 49. 

Two guys in my class got 90s on that same eval. I'm not going to pretend that didn't bother me, because it absolutely did. My A-Lead looked at me before we ran the next problem, could tell I was in a bad mood, and asked what was going on. I told him. He looked at me without hesitating and said: you will pass and they won't.

I thought he was out of his mind. He was right. Neither of those guys who scored 90s on their first eval passed the program. Neither one of them had a job with the FAA at the end of that class. I did. And I went on to have a 26-year career.

A low score can be a blessing. What that 49 did for me was make it crystal clear that I needed to practice more. I thought I had it. I didn't. That score woke me up, and that wake-up call was exactly what I needed. 

So if it happens to you — and there's a good chance it will — don't let it define you. Let it motivate you.

Now here's what I actually consider the hardest thing at the Academy, the thing I watched derail more students than anything else over five years of instructing: nerves.

I know what you're thinking — of course nerves are an issue. 

But I want to reframe how you think about this, because most students are approaching it completely wrong.

Being nervous doesn't say anything about how competent you are. It doesn't say anything about how prepared you are. It says one thing, and one thing only: you care about what is about to happen. That's it. 

Nerves are not a warning sign. 

They are not evidence that you're going to fail. 

I played soccer from the time I was seven years old, through college, a little bit after — very, very semi-professionally, as I like to say — and then got into coaching and found out I loved it even more than playing. I've spent a lot of my life watching how athletes perform under pressure, and one thing stands out. 

I watch golf, and I've heard the commentators — many of them former tour players — talk about what happens to the top golfers in the world on the final day of a tournament, coming down the stretch on the last few holes. 

The adrenaline pumps. These are the best players on the planet, and they still feel it.

Why? Because it matters to them. What is about to happen matters to them. 

And that's the same thing your nerves are telling you at the Academy.

One of my trainers at Fort Worth Center introduced me to the concept of a pre-shot routine, and it changed how I thought about performance under pressure. 

A professional golfer standing over a critical shot with 20,000 people lining the fairway and millions more watching on television — how do they still execute? They have a routine. 

By the time they step up to the ball and begin their swing, everything else in the world has been shut out. 

The routine gets them there.

When you walk through that door into the lab or the classroom for your evaluation, nothing from outside that room should be able to reach you. It doesn't matter what happened earlier in the day. It doesn't matter what's going on at home. 

I've had students dealing with genuinely difficult things in their personal lives while trying to get through the Academy — things that would be hard for anyone to set aside. But when you cross that threshold, all that has to go away. The only thing happening in your world is the problem in front of you.

I'll be honest about the golfers who miss a shot and blame a camera shutter in their backswing — they weren't focused. That's it. The camera didn't cost them the shot. A lack of focus did. I've played golf and had someone talking in my backswing, heard it, and still hit one of my best shots of the day. 

Develop your routine. 

Whatever it takes to get you locked in before you start — use it every single time. Make it automatic. By the time you're in your eval, that routine should be so ingrained that it carries you through the door on autopilot.

The best thing you can do to manage nerves is to make the eval feel as familiar as possible before it ever happens. 

And the way you do that is through practice — specifically, practice that simulates the pressure of an actual evaluation.

In the last week of the radar lab, the goal as instructors is to get you running problems on your own. We try to pull back and let you struggle when you need to, because you need to be in that situation before it counts. If an instructor is still trying to guide you through problems and offer advice during that final stretch, it's completely acceptable to say — respectfully — that you'd like to try it on your own. 

That's not disrespectful. That's smart preparation.

Do the same thing in non-radar. The last seven or so problems are excellent preparation for your eval. Tell the instructor upfront that you want to treat it like an eval. They'll give you that space. Use it.

The more times you've put yourself in a high-pressure situation before the real thing, the less unfamiliar it feels when it counts. 

You can't perfectly replicate the feeling of an official evaluation, but you can get close enough that your nerves work for you instead of against you.

Here's something that gets overlooked: rest matters enormously when it comes to performance under pressure.

The night before your evals, try to get as much sleep as you possibly can. I know that's easier said than done when adrenaline is running high and your brain won't stop running through scenarios. But even if sleep doesn't come easily, let your body rest. Stay in bed. Don't get up and start pacing or studying. Give your body the recovery it needs, because you are going to need every bit of mental sharpness you have the next day.

Sleep won't replace preparation, but poor rest can undermine it. 

You've done the work. At that point, the best thing you can do is rest.

I want to leave you with this, because I think it reframes everything.

The students I watched walk into evals visibly shaking, sweating through their clothes before the first practice problem — those nerves weren't the enemy. 

In many cases, those students passed. 

What mattered was whether they had put in the work, built the habits, and developed a routine that could carry them through the pressure.

The more knowledge you have going in, the more practice you have behind you, the more confidence you'll feel when you cross that threshold. 

That confidence doesn't mean the nerves go away. It means you've earned the right to use them.

Being nervous means you care. And caring is exactly the right starting point.

So practice hard, know your material, build your pre-eval routine, and get your rest. 

The nerves will be there.