STEMINIST PODCAST

Season 3 - Episode 3

DEEP DIVE INTO WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A STEM ATHLETE

In this episode we meet Elizabeth Richardson , a senior at the Cullen College of Engineering, who is practically an expert at deep dives at this point – both in the classroom, and at the University of Houston's Natatorium, to discuss how she balances her academic and athletic lives.

This episode was hosted by Trinity Doan, a junior Civil Engineering student.

More about Elizabeth Richardson:

A native of Vero Beach, Florida, Richardson has balanced an aggressive academic course load in Industrial with her work in the pool. The Cougars' swimming and diving team has won six straight American Athletic Conference titles.

Richardson was part of the title effort, earning seven points for a 10th place finish in the 1650-yard freestyle. The Cougars ended up needing every single point they could get, as they finished only a half-point ahead of Southern Methodist, 866.5866, for the victory. Richardson was also named the Female Academic Cougar of the Year by UH Athletics.

EPISODE EXCERPT:

My name is Elizabeth and I’m a senior here at the University of Houston. I’m studying industrial engineering, while also being in the Honors College, and I also partake on the University’s Swim & Dive team, primarily a freestyler as well as we’ve been conference champs the past 6 years now in a row, so hoping to keep that streak alive. This coming spring we get to compete against SMU.

Nice! Can you tell me what SMU is?

Southern Methodist University. They are hosting our American Athletic Conference Championship.

When did you first become interested in the field of Industrial Engineering?

When I was searching for colleges, I had committed to the University of Houston for Swim & Dive early on in my senior year, so then I started looking into what kind of majors, I’ve always been involved in the STEM field, but I didn’t know quite what route I wanted to take in the STEM field. I was looking at the engineering route and read up on industrial engineering and the definition of it and it pretty much fully explained my type of the way I work, efficiency and proposing new solutions to make things work better and faster and that’s just pretty much my day-to-day life, always thinking of new solutions in that sort of way, so I decided to go that route for engineering.

How did you first get involved with STEM?

I’ve always been in STEM. I’ve been a math whiz since I was in third grade. We called it “sunshine math” back in elementary school, where we had an extra math class. I’ve always enjoyed problem solving with a definitive answer, getting to solve that. I’ve always been the math whiz, the statistics route, I was considering that, but I wanted to go into an engineering field because I feel like it offers you more opportunities to not only work the problems but also see the change happen as well, especially with industrial engineering where there’s a lot of that change and improving things, so I very much like that aspect of it to not only think of the ideas but also put them into action.

What’s it like for you to do competitive swimming and diving while majoring in STEM?

Yeah, so I mean it can definitely get overwhelming at times, it’s pretty much a full-time job on top of another full-time job of doing school, but I've grown up with my mindset of staying busy and doing as much as possible and making worth your time. I like having that set schedule of consistency, having practice in the morning, running to classes, going to another practice, then get home and you’re only given about 3 or 4 hours of time to do your actual schoolwork, so it very much gets you to do your schoolwork. You can’t procrastinate because you don’t have the time that other students might have, so in that aspect, it is very nice having that support system that I have with the Swim & Dive team to help me be successful in STEM and industrial engineering to help back me up when I need help when times get rough, just having that support system too.

ABOUT THE STEMINIST PODCAST:

The STEMinist podcast aims to support an underrepresented topic: science communication. The podcast project seeks to improve science communication skills and give a voice to women in STEM fields, and features students, scientists, engineers and industry leaders. Nicole Guinn served as the podcast’s primary host for seasons 1 and 2. Season 3 features five student hosts: Michelle Patrick-Krueger, Nusayba Eli-Ali, Sarah Mukhida, Aria Shankar, and Trinity Doan. Topics have ranged from student athletes, space exploration, career advice, and work-life balance.

Listen to new episodes online, or start from the beginning, at www.egr.uh.edu/news/podcast or on Anchor, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Beginning Of Semester Party

The Beginning of Semester (BOS) Party was held in late September and was sponsored by Fluor Corporation. The event is a fun opportunity for students to let loose and check out the College’s many student organizations. Food, drinks and games are available to attendees free of charge, and students can even try their hands at drenching a professor at the ever-popular dunk tank.