Attending college is an exciting adventure for many after high school. Shae Douglas begins this new chapter at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.
A school that equally values academics and athletics was a top of the priority according to Douglas.
“It’s the best school that fit everything I was looking for. I wanted to find a school that was good academically, because that’s one of my top priorities, but also wanted to have a school that had a good balance with athletics because I was sure that I wanted to run track in college,” she says.
Douglas graduated from Pickerington Central in the spring of 2018, finishing up the year ranked sixth in her class. At the moment, she plans to major in biochemistry due in large part to her interest in the medical field. She hopes to make a difference in the world by being a part of technological advancements in medicine.
“I was having a hard time figuring out what major I wanted to do,” Douglas says. “I definitely want to do something with medicine … but I want to do more of a research-based thing where I can figure out how things affect the body and come up with new medicine.”
After completing her undergraduate degree, Douglas plans to continue on to the graduate school, which she hopes to figure out during her time as an undergrad in South Bend.
Douglas has been a competitive runner since the age of seven and was a member of the track team at Pickerington Central where she set personal records of 12.13 and 25.52 seconds in the 100m and 200m races respectively. She will continue her track career at Notre Dame this winter and next spring.
“I’ve been running since I was like four,” Douglas says. “I would always hate the day where we would do 300’s and stuff because I hate that kind of running. The reason I really enjoy running is … just running as fast as I can is really fun to me. I would always race my brothers and when I could beat them or be really close, it was just real fun.”
Douglas credits her six family members for their help along the way. Her father, who also served as her coach for a number of years, is one she credits in particular. Her athletic career hasn’t always been easy and he’s been there for her all along.
“He’s been my coach ever since I was little even through high school,” Douglas says. “I had some health issues that interfered with my running a little bit. I had a herniated disc and it would send pain throughout my legs and it made me struggle. So I had to make sure that the people I was working with really knew me.”
With the support she has received and the hard work that she has put in, Douglas feels ready for her next chapter.
“Honestly, I’m most excited about being challenged,” Douglas says. “High school wasn’t supposed to be hard, it felt like. College is going to be a lot more specialized in what I want to be learning about, so, I think it’s going to be a lot more interesting.”
Evan Wehmeyer is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
