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| Aedan Pettit |
The College of Wooster athletic department will be celebrating the annual NCAA Division III Week from April 13-19. It's a time to celebrate the many accomplishments of student-athletes. Wooster is one of about 450 colleges and universities within Div. III, a grouping that emphasizes balance of rigorous academics and competitive athletics, plus the opportunity to pursue extra-curricular activities on campus.
You can check out the department's Twitter and Instagram accounts for additional content all week long. Each day, select seniors will be featured answering questions that pertain to Wooster athletics and the three core pillars of NCAA Div. III – Discover, Develop, and Dedicate.
We'll also be featuring two seniors on our athletic website this week, who will share answers to some of the questions you'll see on social media in a longer format, plus a few others. Today's featured senior is cross country and track & field student-athlete Aedan Pettit, a computer science and mathematics major from Round Hill, Virginia.
Q: Why Wooster?
A: The first thing that drew me to Wooster was the research opportunities that exist here, particularly I.S. (learn more about Wooster's Independent Study). Once I visited, I loved the feel of the campus. I also really liked Coach Rice, Coach Julius, and the rest of the cross country team, which made my decision to go here pretty easy.
Q: How has Wooster helped & enabled you to pursue interests beyond the classroom & field of play?
A: Being a Wooster student has made me learn how to work hard and be a good time manager. This enabled me to land my first internship and excel while I was there.
Q: Following that up, you've had some pretty cool experiences during your time at the College, including three summer internships with The Aerospace Corporation. Tell us a little about what some of your duties were at Aerospace?
A: During my three summers at Aerospace, I worked on several projects across two departments. My first two summers focused on experimenting with new technologies and different ways to use them. For example, I created a system that allowed me to fly a drone by providing voice commands via an Amazon Echo. This past summer, I worked on the development of a software tool that hopes to calculate optimal satellite movements while in orbit.
Q: You've also been published a few times and presented your research internationally. Tell us about what you researched and the international conference you presented at?
A: During winter break of my sophomore year, I was able to work on a project at Aerospace that resulted in two publications. Our research was on detecting single event upsets in software. I wrote a program that attempted to do this and had some success during initial testing. We presented our research at a workshop at the International Conference on Software Engineering in Gothenburg, Sweden. At the time we went, this was the largest software engineering conference in history.
Q: How has Wooster helped you dedicate yourself to achieving your potential?
A: At the beginning of every season, Coach Rice emphasizes that his goal is for us to reach our true potential, both athletically and academically. Making goals is a key part of helping us reach this potential, and his example of always setting goals has really resonated with me. Taking this goal-setting approach and applying it to my athletics and academics has played a key role in the successes that I have had during my time at Wooster.
Q: What advice do you have for future Wooster student-athletes?
A: The two pieces of advice I have for future Fighting Scots are balance your commitments and enjoy it while it lasts. While academics and athletics are important, nothing can replace the friendships and relationships that you make with people across campus. And, as I have learned from experience, you never know how long you'll have to enjoy this experience, so never forget to appreciate just how special it is.
Q: This always is a fun one, as Coach Rice is always a great storyteller and great with motivational quotes for the team. So, what's your favorite Coach Rice story or quote?
A: After losing our dual meet with Denison University in cross country, Coach Rice was extremely motivated to beat them in the indoor dual meet. In fact, he pulled Miki (Rae) and I aside before the meet and told us we had to finish first and second in the mile and the 800. We finished first and second in the mile and first and third in the 800 to help us secure the win! Afterwards, Coach Rice was grinning ear to ear, which made the exhaustion from running both events worth it.