She Lives Jet-Set Life With Class Student Squeezes Education Into Flight-Attendant Schedule

Contesa Diaz flies to school - from Anchorage to Eugene on Tuesdays, then back again at the end of the week.

The 22-year-old juggles classes at the University of Oregon and a job as a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines. She has homes in Eugene and Anchorage, where her job is based.

“My life is crazy,” said Diaz, a journalism major and Portland native. “There are some weeks when I’m in a different state every day.”

Most weeks, she attends classes Tuesday through Thursday, often arriving for her first class of the week at 11 a.m. still bleary-eyed from a morning commute.

When her last class ends at 8 p.m. Thursday, she has less than an hour to catch a flight from Eugene to Seattle. From there, she flies to Anchorage, arriving about 3 a.m. Friday.

Then it’s off to work for the weekend, which often involves trips to Canada, Mexico - even Russia.

Between flights and during weather delays, Diaz squeezes in her homework.

She uses a laptop computer to tap into lectures and do assignments for an on-line economics class. She’s also taking a journalism class and crisis-intervention seminar.

“She’s not a person who can sit and be in couch-world,” said her Eugene roommate, Shari Goochey.

Last year, Diaz held down three part-time jobs while attending school full time. In addition to working at the university athletic department, she helped start a program for troubled youths and earned university credit for volunteering at a Springfield elementary school.

“I’ve always had to keep myself running,” she said. “I need to be doing something all the time.”

Last spring she applied for the airline job, thinking it would be fun.

“I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into,” she said.

After six interviews and a battery of tests, she was one of 30 people hired out of more than 500 applicants. She even hired an instructor to teach her to swim well enough to pass the swimming test.

She works about 11 shifts a month. The money and benefits are good and she enjoys meeting people.

But it’s not glamorous, she said. The 13-hour flights to Russia are particularly grueling. Some passengers insist on smoking and there’s never enough vodka, she said.

“I’ve learned patience like no tomorrow,” she said.

She’s also learned how to handle her demanding schedule.

“It takes a really responsible student to do it,” journalism professor Deanna Robinson said. “She strikes me as a person who really knows what she wants to do. It takes a lot of self-discipline.”

Diaz said she doesn’t plan to be a career flight attendant, but wants to stay with the airline, eventually moving into human resources or public relations.

In the meantime, her schedule should calm down later this month when she moves her base from Anchorage to Los Angeles - a mere three-hour air commute from Eugene.

“My boyfriend lives in Los Angeles,” she said. “I’ll get to see him.”