Q: What brought you to Kines and the Applied Exercise Science Program?
A: I used to be a computer science major in LSA, and then I transferred to engineering and I did that all the way up until the beginning of my junior year. And then I realized I hated it. I’ve always really liked physical activity and health and well-being. I always told people that in a different life, I’d be a kinesiology major. And then one day, I was like, ‘Wait, I can just do that.’ It was a big change, but it’s the best decision I've ever made in college.

Q: That’s great. But you ended up doing these other tech-related internships after that, right?
A: Yeah, I still had this vast technical background. And I'm a UX [user experience] minor alongside my AES major. I worked so hard on the tech side of my skills, so I wanted to utilize that somehow.

Summer of junior year – that’s the big internship summer. I applied to hundreds of internship positions to try to develop my UX portfolio. And then I was on this website looking at startups that post job positions. This one that seemed kind of legit was called The Verse. It was a game development company that focused on health and well-being.

I ended up working with them from January to April. The role that I was in was helping create ideas for prosocial games [“games in which game characters help and support each other in nonviolent ways”].

They worked with a lot of different organizations doing studies on how prosocial behaviors can improve people's mental and physical well-being by basically just doing good things for other people. They help you with lots of different disorders and mental illnesses.

I worked specifically on this game called Karma The Six Realms. It’s based on Buddhism, and the idea that putting good into the world brings you good back.

I was creating different versions of the six realms. So we did how different characters from Marvel or, say, Gravity Falls represent each one of the six realms.

Q: Very cool. But you were still looking for summer internships?
A: Yeah, I still didn’t have anything for the summer. Then I met [AES lecturer and Kines alum] Michael Stack at the Kines career fair. I told him I was interested in tech and fitness, but I didn’t know how to put them together. We got to talking, and he told me he was going to Los Angeles in two weeks for this show called the Health and Fitness Convention. ‘If you somehow make it there,’ he said, ‘I’ll introduce you to all these people.’ It’s the biggest health and fitness convention in the industry, and he’s very well connected so he suggested I could go and network and get my foot in the door.

I bought the cheapest flight and hotel. I was scared. I was pretty fresh to the idea of networking at that point, but also the idea of going all the way across the country to do that — I didn't know what to expect.

It was three days of grinding. I went to every single booth and talked to everyone there. I was the one who was like, ‘What's the back end of this look like? What does the UX design of this look like? How does UX design fall into your company?’ And that was a really interesting question for most people so I got a lot of different contacts there.

Every day after I would network, I had my little notebook. I would write everything down and then connect with them on LinkedIn, send that message, do the whole thing.

And then the main company there, the biggest booth, was called ABC Fitness. They’re the main tech company in the fitness industry. They do all the back end customer management software, they've developed apps.

I went and talked to one person, and they were like, ‘Oh, we're actually hiring interns right now.’ I applied to their marketing internship, but I saw that they had a product internship. I talked to the recruiter, and they helped me a ton trying to find something that fit my background. I felt really valued because they really liked that I was interested in fitness but also that I had this very strong technical background.

I don't know if going to the conference actually helped, but I got hired as a product management intern, which is kind of crazy because I thought that after I transferred into Kines, tech wasn't on the table for me anymore.

It was interesting — not what I would have expected. It was all Jira and backlogs and scrum and how product management is the connection between the business people and the tech people.

And then this summer I have another internship. But I'm veering more towards the side of corporate wellness with Exos. So it's combining my ability to be in the corporate setting with diving into my own trainer side as well.

Q: Wow, fascinating. Are you ultimately interested in going into a tech-related space? Or was that the bridge for you to focus more on health and fitness?
A: I think in an ideal world I get paid enough to just focus on health and fitness. But I want to go to New York and unfortunately, I think to support myself I can’t just be a trainer. I know the disparities between the salary of someone who’s a product manager versus a health and fitness coach. And I think it'd be a shame for me to have these skills and not utilize them. So I'm trying to transition eventually. But right now, I'll try to capitalize on both as much as I can.

Q: Is your ultimate goal to be a fitness coach, a personal trainer? 
A: My goal is to own a gym and create my own brand as a trainer.

Q: What made you interested in that health and fitness path?
A: I've done sports my whole life. I swam for 15 years. Then I came to college and competed in powerlifting, and now I'm competing in boxing. I trained in powerlifting and boxing at the same time, and I was trying to figure out how to do both because they're very different sports, and they require very different skill sets. There wasn't really much out there, so I had to figure things out myself. And that really made me interested in training. I’m currently a trainer at Title Boxing Club; I teach group and personal training classes. So fitness has always been a part of my life.

Q: How did you get into powerlifting and boxing?
A: I started lifting just ‘cause it’s very accessible as a student here. And I realized I was pretty strong. A lot of my friends were on the powerlifting team so I just fell into it. It was a natural progression. And then I ended up being really good at it.

But when I realized I was strong, I wanted to use it for something, and I knew combat sports is what that could mean for me. But I didn't know which one exactly because there's so many, and it's intimidating when you don't know anything. And then, one day, my friend posted a flyer for the boxing team tryouts. So I was like, ‘OK, let's just do it.’

When I found myself in those places, I didn’t want to stop. Eventually, I couldn’t sustain both powerlifting and boxing, and I became vice president of the boxing team so I went with that.

Q: What appeals to you about boxing?
A: It's very cerebral, and it keeps you in very good shape. With powerlifting, sometimes I felt heavy. But with boxing, I really like the physical shape it keeps me in and also how it makes me feel mentally and the confidence it gives me. I'm very proud to say I'm a boxer.

And the best boxers are really smart because you have to think about certain moves and how you're going to react. I want to do combat sports for the rest of my life. I'm starting to learn how to kickbox, how to grapple, jujitsu, things like that.

I also like the aspect of empowering girls not only to box but also start sparring and get into that aspect of the sport. I’m trying to get more females to show up at the gym I train at, not only in the bag classes but at the sparring sessions as well.

Q: What do you think the barrier is for women to spar?
A: I think they don't see many women sparring. Right now, I'm in AES 334: “Exercise Psychology.” And we’ve learned that seeing someone like you do the thing that is scary to you is really important. And so that's why I try to show up when I can to these sparring sessions. And then with girls, sometimes it’s just not what they think about. It’s hard at Festifall to get the girls to pay attention. I see a lot more guys who love watching wrestling or boxing or UFC. If girls aren’t thinking about it as much, then they’re more likely to brush it off.

I get it — it’s not natural to want to get hit in the face. But from when I first joined the boxing team to now, the female team has become much stronger, which is nice because it’s also much harder to stay in the sport if you don’t have a strong support network around you. I have a very intrinsic motivation to box, but having the external motivation with all my friends is really nice, too, and some gyms just don’t have that.

Q: Do you think that boxing would be the focus of the gym you'd own?
A: I know I have a lot of steps, and I just trust that the natural progression of my career will lay out the pieces for what I want my gym to look like. Like falling into powerlifting and boxing just felt natural.

Q: In terms of your experience at some of these tech internships and your UX design work, have you seen ways to incorporate that into your focus on health and fitness? Maybe the way that you have been trained how to think or the way you approach a problem?
A: Definitely. I’ve noticed that the technology used in programming or fitness apps isn't as up to par as other industries. I'm not a software developer, so I can't actually create the apps themselves. But just thinking about, ‘OK, that's not very accessible; I can see a lot of problems with that not reaching as large of an audience as it could’ — that’s relevant in a lot more gyms than you would think.

Especially with boxing. I respect boxing because everyone who boxes — they're just there to box. They don't care about anything else. But some of the websites and the flyers for these events are atrocious. Just because you're only there to box, wouldn't a better flyer or a better website draw more people to the sport? I was social media manager of my boxing team last semester, and I still take on some of the roles of creating flyers because my team knows I’m good at that stuff. But I don't have the time to do it as much anymore. And it's also not my job anymore. I’m only one person. So I’m trying to pick my battles.

Q: I feel that. You mentioned your exercise psychology class. What are the kinds of things that you've learned through your AES courses that really stand out to you as telling you you're in the right place, that you made the right choice to switch to AES?
A: There are a lot of things I appreciate. First thing is: Half my classes I move around, and I'm not just sitting around all day. That's something I really like, and I feel energized after my classes.

But then also for example, I'm cutting weight for my tournament this week and my professor was talking about water loss and how dangerous it is and how acclimating yourself to heat or wearing sweatsuits can affect your body — something that's directly prevalent to what's going on in my life right now. That's happened a bunch of times. I had a concussion last semester and during that same time she was giving us a lecture about head trauma. So it’s awesome that I don't have to go out and seek this information out; it’s just being spit at me, and I can directly apply it to my life. I’m not living two lives anymore.

Q: That's awesome. What advice would you give to prospective students or students who are just starting in the AES program and might want to go a similar route?
A: I’ve done a lot of things throughout my college career. Like I was in two research labs that have nothing to do with either of my majors. I've been rejected from a lot of things as well, especially Greek life. I rushed a bunch of professional frats, and every single one rejected me. To me, that just means, ‘OK, it wasn't meant for me.’ I don’t feel like I'm missing anything in my life; I’ve found a way to fill it up with other things naturally again. So my advice would be: to let things naturally flow and be open to different opportunities. I don’t mean expect the opportunities to come to you — you have to go and seek them out. But just stay very open-minded.

And find good mentors as well. If I didn’t have the people around me to talk to and help me through, I don’t know if I actually would have changed my major. But you have to find the mentors through putting yourself out there, too.

Q: Who were those people that were really instrumental in you changing your major?
A: I'm really close to my siblings and especially my brother. They're very good at not just telling me what to do but talking me through it and giving me light advice. Making sure that the decision was still mine at the end of the day. Then there was my first research lab manager. We connected really well. So when I was going through that, she was the other person that I was like, ‘Can I please set up a call with you? I really just need to talk through this,’ because I knew that she was able to see the type of person I was, and I knew she would give me good advice.

Q: I wanted to go back to your experience with ABC Fitness since you now want to own a gym. Did that goal stem from the experience of working at ABC? 
A: I don't think so. I had it before. My siblings are also very fitness-oriented people, and we’d always talked about owning a gym together some day. As we get older, that idea is starting to become more and more like, ‘Oh, why not?’ But from ABC Fitness, I know much more how a gym operates, and I have a much better idea of what I would need to do to own a gym. And I got to sit in on presentations about what’s working in the gyms right now and, as the industry progresses, why different, newer gyms are succeeding over the older gyms. That’s extremely valuable information.

Q: If your gym were to become a reality, do you think it would be women-focused? Or broader than that?
A: That’s something I’ve been grappling with because there are some really successful gyms out there that are women only. I didn’t know that until I went to that conference, and I started networking with all these people. But I was thinking: What if I do a combat gym that’s only for females? That’s definitely something I’ve thought about in the past and could totally see working.

Q: Anything else that we didn’t touch on, about your experience with AES or your future plans?
A: Dr. [Laura] Richardson recently connected me with a strength and conditioning coach at the UFC because that’s also been something on my radar. Shifting gears into trainer mode completely away from tech and being a strength and conditioning coach for the UFC would be so cool.

I had a meeting with him, and he was saying, ‘Leverage the fact that you’re a female and a female who doesn’t work out just for aesthetics but that you have this very strong combat sport and strength background. These UFC fighters don’t want to be trained by a girl that just wants to work out to be skinny.’ I was like, ‘Finally!’ Being in a space where that is appreciated is really nice to hear.