Training For The Olympics Is Hard Enough. Try Doing That While Earning A Degree [updated] Nathan Chen wants to try while attending Yale University

[Sylvia]

Heard on NPR's All Things Considered (January 4, 2018) - this article and 4-minute audio report features Max Aaron and Mirai Nagasu (as well as other elite athletes): https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/201...-enough-try-doing-that-while-earning-a-degree

I thought it was worth re-posting this link/starting a new thread in light of Nathan Chen's recent acceptance into the Yale University class of 2022 (as newly listed on his Instagram profile).

See posts #23 & 24 below for the link to the April 3rd Icenetwork article by Phil Hersh about Nathan's current plan to attend Yale University this fall and his desire to continue competing.

 

[misskarne]

This is the one I was looking to dig up in the US men's thread.

My favourite bits about Max (not quoting all the bits because a large part of the article is about him) :

A onetime hockey player who switched to figure skating after breaking his back in high school, Aaron took his competitive nature with him to the university, where he was determined to outdo his classmates.

"I look at, they got a 99 — I'm going to get 100," he says during a break from the rink in the World Arena Ice Hall, where aspiring and elite Olympic skaters train.

That doesn't mean it was easy. Because of his skating career, he hadn't ever taken the SAT or ACT, so he had to start at community college. He worked as a a waiter on the weekends to help pay the tuition. To accommodate his three hours a day at the rink, plus warmup time, strength conditioning, physical therapy and dance, he typically took his finance classes from 8 to 10:40 a.m. and 7:30 to 10:05 p.m.

"I laid out my entire schedule," he says. " 'And these are my breaks and this is when the courses meet and where I can fit them in.' " Universities "don't work around you," he says, "you work around them."

That's what keeps Max Aaron focused on fulfilling his grandfather's wishes.

"I have met a lot of athletes who were on the top of their sport, and then sat around and did nothing. They just didn't know what to do," he says. "It eventually ends, and that's what I think a lot of athletes forget. It's 10 years after the Olympics and you won the Olympics and that's great, but no one cares."

His graduation ceremony last month was held in the arena next to the rink where he trained. His grandfather couldn't make it, but his parents did.

After he received his degree, he went back to the locker room, changed clothes, and got back on the ice to train some more.

Bit about Mirai:

Figure skater Mirai Nagasu also hopes to return to the Olympics — she came in fourth in Vancouver in 2010, when she was just 16.

"Whenever I have a break, I'm back on my computer and studying," says Nagasu, now 24. She's in the equivalent of her junior year, on her way to a bachelor's degree in international business at UCCS. "It is so beyond difficult to balance it all. During finals week I don't get a lot of sleep and I tell myself, 'I can't do this anymore.'"

But she and other Olympic athletes do, because they know their competitive years will someday end.

 

[Sylvia]

In this interview in Czech published on March 26 after the men's event at Milan Worlds, Michal Brezina reveals at the end that he knew Nathan Chen had been accepted to Yale (article link is posted here in the "Another Rafael Arutyunyan interview" thread). Google translated excerpt:

And what else? YALE and gold from China
Do not look for the revolutionary idea of boasting. "Nathan is a normal boy," Březina says. It's definitely not just a jumping machine. He has been playing piano for eight years, he has his own recitals. He was also an excellent gymnast.
"He will not wear his nose up, he does not buy expensive branded things. He is terribly clever and thinks differently than we do other than the other figure skaters, "says Březina. "All the money he earns hides at school because universities are expensive in America. He wants to study biological engineering or medicine. They have already accepted him for the prestigious YALE. Let's see how he can get together."
Chen's mission has a clear meta: gold from the Beijing Games 2022.

 

[Yazmeen]

@Sylvia, thanks for resharing this, I missed it the first time around.

 

[Sylvia]

@Sylvia, thanks for resharing this, I missed it the first time around.

Probably because the link wasn't posted in GSD but in both the Max and Mirai fan threads.

Here's a UC-Colorado Springs story about Max Aaron right before he graduated in December 2017: http://communique.uccs.edu/?p=28966

Aaron combined a heavy course load with five to six hours of daily training. He took early morning, evening and summer classes, approaching each with the attitude “that a B was not an option.” He worked with academic advisers to help them understand the needs of top athletes who are UCCS students.
“I know skating can’t last forever,” the almost 25-year-old said. “When it comes time to retire, I wanted to have something that I can rely on. Studying finance was the right thing for me. When the time comes, I hope to work with professional athletes, including some of my buddies in the NHL, to help them manage their money so it can last.”

I posted this article in a GSD thread last year:

Sarah Brannen's 3/3/17 "Inside Edge" blog gives well-deserved credit to some of the Team USA skaters who, this season, have had to balance their training/competing with college course loads -- Kevin Shum, Alex Johnson, Mirai Nagasu, Max Aaron, Angela Wang, Jordan Moeller and Karina Manta are all quoted: http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2017/03/03/217803142

 

[Sylvia]

Yale Daily News article: Figure skater Nathan Chen touts Yale acceptance on Instagram

Chen recently updated his Instagram page to include “Yale ’22” in the bio section of the platform. A screenshot of the update that appeared on the Facebook group “Overheard at Yale” on Sunday attracted immediate attention, receiving more than 1,000 likes within a day, as well as a flood of celebratory comments from Yalies. The skater’s spokeswoman confirmed that he has been accepted to Yale, which released admissions decisions last week.

Kimberly Wei ’20, who placed 28th in ice dancing in the 2016 World Junior Figure Skating Championships [with Illias Fourati for Hungary], said that although she welcomes Chen’s apparent decision to come to Yale, she is “confused” about why the skater has decided to attend college at the peak of his career.

Wei, also a pre-med student, said she had to end her competitive skating career after coming to Yale.

ETA that Phil Hersh has spoken to Nathan ("it is his intention to enter Yale for the fall semester and continue competing. 'A lot of things still have to be worked out.'") and there is supposed to be an article on Icenetwork later today: https://twitter.com/olyphil/status/981183449208848384

ETA #2: I've updated the thread title accordingly.

 

[jiejie]

I feel very secure making the following prediction: If Nathan Chen is at the 2022 Olympics, he will not be graduating Yale in 2022. Conversely, if Nathan graduates from Yale in 2022, he will not be at the 2022 Olympics. He seems to have two goals that are time-wise, incompatible and the field of study he is planning is particularly unforgiving of discontinuities. Similarly, the level of skating he needs to maintain to stay competitive, is also unforgiving of taking a lot of time out. If he has figured out some way to make this work, more power to him. But I suspect he will not fully understand just how much he has bitten off, until he is actually living the schedule in real-time.

 

[MsZem]

I feel very secure making the following prediction: If Nathan Chen is at the 2022 Olympics, he will not be graduating Yale in 2022. Conversely, if Nathan graduates from Yale in 2022, he will not be at the 2022 Olympics. He seems to have two goals that are time-wise, incompatible and the field of study he is planning is particularly unforgiving of discontinuities. Similarly, the level of skating he needs to maintain to stay competitive, is also unforgiving of taking a lot of time out. If he has figured out some way to make this work, more power to him. But I suspect he will not fully understand just how much he has bitten off, until he is actually living the schedule in real-time.

I think it's a matter of whether Yale will be willing to work with Nathan to put together a workable schedule, and what kind of training situation he can set up for himself while there. There are student athletes, even in the Ivy League, and there are plenty of skaters who have pursued academic studies successfully during their careers (an obvious, though older, US example being Matt Savoie). There are also a lot of people who work and study at the same time.

But yes, I think it's more realistic for him to take some time off from college if he wants to train seriously for Beijing. A redshirt season, more or less

 

[skatfan]

I feel very secure making the following prediction: If Nathan Chen is at the 2022 Olympics, he will not be graduating Yale in 2022. Conversely, if Nathan graduates from Yale in 2022, he will not be at the 2022 Olympics. He seems to have two goals that are time-wise, incompatible and the field of study he is planning is particularly unforgiving of discontinuities. Similarly, the level of skating he needs to maintain to stay competitive, is also unforgiving of taking a lot of time out. If he has figured out some way to make this work, more power to him. But I suspect he will not fully understand just how much he has bitten off, until he is actually living the schedule in real-time.

With the idea of a science major, the unforgiving part are the lab courses, which usually cannot be flexed time-wise. Plus, his current coach is 3,000 miles away from Yale. I'm truly puzzled that he thinks this is possible. Has he talked to Charlie and Meryl, to Max Aaron, to Paul Wylie? I agree that something will give in the end.

 

[chapis]

He should talk with Rachel Flatt too, I think she studied pre-med at Stanford, it seems she finally decided psychology and no Medicine but being a figure skater she knows how realistic his expectations can be.

 

[MsZem]

Maybe he should have a chat with Dr. Virtanen

Lynn Kriengkrairut was a premed major at Michigan, with a focus on in brain, behavior, and cognitive sciences. She wasn't training quads, but she did compete internationally for several years and has since moved on to med school. I don't think she finished her undergraduate degree in 4 years, though.

 

[Tinami Amori]

Max Aaron has a very wise grand-father....

But all his grandfather wants to know is when he's going to machan a leibedik—Yiddish for "make a living."

 

[feraina]

Well not all science majors have a ton of mandatory and time consuming lab classes. At MIT as a brain and cognitive science major, I don’t recall a single lab class. The only lab was a physics class, which was required of all students.
Also, I know that Harvard allows its students to take almost an indefinite leave of absence and then come back and finish their degree. I have one friend who graduated 15 years after his original class, and Harvard cheerfully invited him to re-enroll every semester. Yale may be quite similar.
Since Nathan already took a gap year, this might be his last chance to get into a really good school. If the going gets too tough after a semester, he can always take a leave and come back and finish his degree after 2022. Of course he’s not going to admit that to Yale now.

 

[GarrAargHrumph]

Nathan was admitted as part of the Yale class of 2022. That doesn't mean he will, or is required to graduate in 2022. That's just the "class" he's starting out in - his admission class. His listing this info on his profile doesn't necessarily mean that he actually plans to graduate in 2022.

As far as I know, Yale doesn't formally offer part time programs at the undergrad level. That doesn't mean he can't work with them and attend part time during some or all of his time there. I know that some of the other elite schools have been flexible with some athletes, musicians and actors on that, although this isn't something formal. And this does vary by school - some will work with you, others will not. He'll need to talk to the folks at Yale.

If he's still in skating for the next Olympics, it would make sense for him to take the Olympic (Beijing) year off from school, to focus full time on training. That's what most of the elite skaters who go to university seem to do.

The closest major rink to Yale is possibly Simsbury, about an hour. But a lot of the rinks in southern CT and Westchester County, NY attract coaches from NY and NJ. Not all of them are listed on rink websites, so don't judge based on who is and isn't listed. And Yale has its own rink. He's also about two hours from Hackensack; and it's not unusual for people to commute that long to get to that rink. Then there are about a zillion rinks in that area...

Is Curran Oi still at Yale, or did he graduate?

 

[MsZem]

Is Curran Oi still at Yale, or did he graduate?

He's still there, working towards his PhD in something I can't begin to understand

 

[Sylvia]

He's still there, working towards his PhD in something I can't begin to understand

From Curran Oi's website: http://curranoi.com

Currently PhD Candidate in Biochemistry & Biophysics at Yale University
Academic Interests Protein Engineering, Synthetic Biology, Protein-Protein Interactions, Proteomics, Systems Biology

He graduated from M.I.T. in 2013 and is listed as Yale GRAD '20 in one article online I saw.

Rachael Flatt entered Stanford University, took all her pre-med. courses, and started the medical school application process her senior year before deciding she wanted to focus on research instead (after being a research assistant in the lab of a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences).

According to this tweet, she is moving to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this fall to start her Ph.D. in clinical psychology with Cynthia Bulik who is the Distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders in the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine there.

 

[giselle23]

If Nathan does enroll, I would bet it would only be for one semester for now. He can probably manage the Grand Prix, assuming he can find a rink to practice at at school. Most schools have mid-semester breaks--not sure about Yale. I think Nathan probably has this worked out in his mind already. Of course, the best laid plans, etc., etc. The second semester is where the crunch comes, with Nationals and Worlds. Yale has a summer session, doesn't it?

 

[jiejie]

Yale has a summer session, doesn't it?

The problem is that even with summer sessions, the prerequisite courses/ lab sequence may not be offered. And summer is a heavy training time for new programs, learning choreography, etc. If Nathan does try this science-major + skating bit, one thing he might do is recycle and refresh an older SP or FS or both, so he starts out with some sort of vaguely familiar framework.

 

[MAXSwagg]

Why is this such a big debate? No one knows specifics and Nathan will surely figure things out and manage. People are just going around in circles at this point...

 

[skatfan]

Why is this such a big debate? No one knows specifics and Nathan will surely figure things out and manage. People are just going around in circles at this point...

Have you not been on FSU during the off-season? Check out the P/C, V/M threads for real circling the drain conversations.

 

[GarrAargHrumph]

Why is this such a big debate? No one knows specifics and Nathan will surely figure things out and manage. People are just going around in circles at this point...

Because it's fun.

 

[missing]

Because it's fun.

Not only is it fun but it's amazingly positive. National and World champion skater is planning to go to one of the top universities in America.

Think how this would compare to Skater with high expectations but who falls so often in competitions that falls now have a nickname with the skater's name has gotten into a really lousy for profit college because the skater's father bought the owner of the college a private jet.

Granted I would enjoy a thread like that but that is merely reflective of my own warped personality.

 

[Debbie S]

IN article on Nathan (cross-posted to U.S. Men and Nathan uber threads...are there any more out there? ): http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2018/04/03/270628238

Nathan Chen swings through Hartford with Stars on Ice on Sunday, April 22, before the tour has four nights off.

Bulldog Days, the three-day information session for newly admitted Yale students, begins April 23 in New Haven -- just 40 miles away from the Connecticut capital.

So Chen will be in the right place at the right time to speak to the right people at Yale about how -- and if -- he can begin his college career with the 2018 fall semester and simultaneously continue as a competitive figure skater.

"Going to Yale next fall is the goal right now," Chen said via telephone Tuesday morning from Fort Myers, Florida, where he is rehearsing for the Stars on Ice opening show Friday night. "I am going to Bulldog Days, where I will talk about everything and try to figure things out."

Chen must tell Yale by May 1 if he intends to matriculate in the fall.

Chen, 18, has mentioned pre-med, which is not a defined undergraduate major at Yale. The Yale School of Medicine requires prospective applicants to have completed a total of eight semesters of course work in biology/zoology, chemistry and physics. Yale requires 36 semesters of course work for an undergraduate degree.

"I need to talk with advisors and people at Yale about what my academic trajectory will look like," Chen said. "Potentially, I can do some general requirements online, then figure out the rest as I go along."

If college and competition proved too difficult to juggle, would Chen, who turns 19 in May, give up skating?

"I don't think so," he said. "I'm just barely (two seasons) at the senior level, and I feel like I have a lot more to do in the sport. I don't think it's my time to retire yet."

I think the "36 semesters" is a typo - it's 36 credits/classes total.

 

[Sylvia]

Newly crowned world champ Chen admitted to Yale
Skater expresses desire to maintain coaching relationship with Arutunian
Posted 4/3/18 by Philip Hersh, special to icenetwork
http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2018/04/03/270628238
Excerpts:

"Going to Yale next fall is the goal right now," Chen said via telephone Tuesday morning from Fort Myers, Florida, where he is rehearsing for the Stars on Ice opening show Friday night. "I am going to Bulldog Days, where I will talk about everything and try to figure things out."
Chen must tell Yale by May 1 if he intends to matriculate in the fall.

Chen said he has yet to talk with Arutunian and wants to do that face to face. But the skater said he wants to try a long-distance coaching relationship.
"That's the idea, but I still have to talk to Raf about it," Chen said. "Ultimately, the only thing (certain) right now is that I have been admitted to Yale, and I still want to continue skating."
Arutunian said Tuesday by phone he was willing to give the long-distance idea a chance, even though he would prefer to have Chen stay in California.
"I think it will be hard for him," Arutunian said. "I will help as much as I can. He is my baby. I will be at his side, whatever happens."

"My decisions will be largely based on conversations between me and Yale and me and U.S. Figure Skating, to just figure out what the best approach is," Chen said.
He has yet to talk with U.S. Figure Skating about all the ramifications of his becoming a full-time college student.
"This just really happened, so the next step is for Nathan and his team to speak with USFS about the details," U.S. Figure Skating spokesman Michael Terry said.

(I didn't see Debbie S's post above mine ... though some of our excerpts are different. )

 

[misskarne]

Max Aaron has a very wise grand-father....

Yes, and he has always had a plan for it. I remember even just after the last Olympics he was talking in interviews about his grand plans for after skating. I have never worried about Max becoming one of those lost souls who can't seem to move on from skating.

 

[screech]

It will definitely be a challenge. I remember that it took Jeff Buttle something like 3 years to complete his first year of (I think) engineering at the University of Toronto, and he never graduated (as far as I know).

I'm not familiar with all the coaching locations in the US, but are there any top coaches around the New Haven area that can work with Nathan when he's not with Raf?

 

[Sylvia]

I think the "36 semesters" is a typo - it's 36 credits/classes total.

Correct. I found the relevant info here: http://catalog.yale.edu/handbook-instructors-undergraduates-yale-college/grades/degree-requirements/

To qualify for the award of the bachelor’s degree, a student must successfully complete thirty-six term courses or their equivalent. Yale College does not measure credit by credit hours, but by course credits—normally one credit for each term course. The course load of a Yale undergraduate is somewhat heavier than that of students in other colleges or universities, many of which require only thirty-two course credits for graduation. The thirty-six-course-credit requirement reflects Yale College’s educational policy of endorsing the principle of distribution in studies as strongly as it endorses the principle of concentration.

ETA:

I'm not familiar with all the coaching locations in the US, but are there any top coaches around the New Haven area that can work with Nathan when he's not with Raf?

I'm sure Arutunian will find out.

 

[Tahuu]

This may be the most important details from Hersh's interview:

• Skate America, in Everett, Washington, takes place during the Yale October recess.
• The French Grand Prix event in Grenoble falls during the Thanksgiving recess.
• The Grand Prix Final, in Vancouver, begins the day before Yale's pre-finals reading period starts.
• The 2019 World Championships, in Japan, are during Yale's spring break.

Nathan can do these major competitions without missing classes at Yale! He can have his programs done and do full-time training during the 4-month summer break from May-August in California or other places. He can do daily program run-throughs for 1-2 hours during the semesters. The Yale education not only can better him as a person but also could improve his skating.

 

[jlai]

This may be one of Hersh's better articles in that he did some research on the competition and semester timing. It helps that he also is a Yale grad!

 

[Debbie S]

Nathan can do these major competitions without missing classes at Yale!

He would probably still miss a few classes, just not a full week's worth, since skaters need to travel to events at least several days before they officially start. Plus there's the day of travel home. And reading period/GPF will require studying and paper-writing.

But Nathan sounds like he is aware of the challenges with balancing school and skating and I'm sure will take all scheduling issues into account.