of my teachers at Mulgrave made a phenomenal Cal Berkeley. Additionally, I was not travelling difference to me. Their willingness to accept as much for the National team because our online assignments allowed me to have flexibility NCAA team was priority until the summer time in my academics while also travelling back and when we would play in Canadian National team forth to Montreal for National team training or tournaments. abroad for tournaments. Most of my homework and papers were written on airplanes or in the middle of the night! Some teachers deserve special recognition because of their support of me – James Gardiner, Karyn Mitchell and Stella Abblett all worked to ensure I could ‘balance’ two demanding aspects of my life: academics and athletics. In addition, my life wasn’t exclusively academics and athletics. ABOVE Lauren and teammates representing Canada at the 2008 Jr. Pan Am games. I developed close friendships with a group “...it was precisely the rigour of my high school IB of people and maintain those today. Did this change at all once you reached university?
programme and Water Polo athletic career that made the transition to University of California, Berkeley much easier.”
Interestingly, it was precisely the rigour of my high school IB programme and Water Polo athletic career that made the transition to University of California, Berkeley much easier. Even though being at Cal Berkeley was academically stimulating and the number of water polo practises per week increased, the university provides so much support for student-athletes (free tutoring, early class scheduling around practices, student-athlete peer advisors, etc.) I was able to work with that support and use the same strategies I learned at Mulgrave while at
Did you have any mentors while in high school who helped you navigate IB and your athletic pursuits? I had a lot of wonderful support while at Mulgrave. The big standouts for me are Mr. Gardiner, Ms. Mitchell and Ms. Ablett. All three of them went above and beyond to help me with my athletic/academic balance so I could achieve great success academically in the IB programme and with my water polo. When our final papers were due for IB, I was in
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