Going for the gold...and a college diploma

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been glued to your television every night for the past two weeks.  I cannot get enough of the Winter Olympics, and I like to think I’ve become a bit of an aficionado (although my friends see it more as a nerd than an aficionado).  Either way, watching hours and hours of Olympic coverage, I’ve learned a lot about the athletes, and my ears always perk up at the mention of college.  Because although I’m temporarily an Olympics nerd, I am always a college nerd.  Here are some of the fun college-related things I’ve learned: 

• The expert analysts for ice dancing love to mention that competitors Meryl Davis, Charlie White, Evan Bates, and Emily Samuelson are all current students at the University of Michigan.  What they fail to mention is that the four are currently keeping a blog about their Olympic experience on the UM website.  A recent post by Bates reads, “won the lottery today….the ticket lottery. going to usa v. switzerland hockey game AND short track tonight. HOLLLLLLLLER!”
• Think New England is too cold for you?  Well not if you’re an Olympian competing in the biathlon.  Dartmouth College is the perfect place to be a skiing, shooting, student-athlete for Laura Spector, a current student, as it was for her teammate, Sara Studebaker, who graduated from Dartmouth in 2007.
• If you’re an Olympic athlete, you probably don’t need a college education, right?  Well Michelle Roark would disagree with you.  She earned a degree from Colorado School of Mines in chemical engineering, petroleum refining and environmental science.
• While speed skater J.R. Celski hasn’t gone to college yet, he will soon.  Celski deferred enrollment to Berkeley until after the games, where he plans to study business or architecture.
• And next time a student complains about taking a hard course load senior year, I’m going to use Rachel Flatt as an example.  Her bio states that she’s taking four AP classes and has already applied to nine colleges, all while training for the Vancouver Olympics.

While I realize that not everyone (as in 99.9% of the population) may be as into Olympic trivia as I am, it does make you think about the amazing possibilities of who you could meet in college.  Just one of the many, many things to look forward to over the next four years (along with the Winter Olympics to come in 2014!).