Division III is remarkable. The student-athletes who attend and compete at DIII colleges do so without monetary compensation and often in conjunction with rigorous academic schedules and a good deal of extracurricular activities thrown in as well. Over the course of my own collegiate career, I shared pool space with athletes who developed robots, helped with political campaigns or competed in foreign countries. It is these stories and these athletes who best exemplify what it means to be a student-athlete at the Division III level.
What follows is a tribute to the athletes of Division III, showcasing seniors from across the country who have brought their own passion to swimming and academia. This series of articles strives to capture some of the many incredible, interesting or quirky things our swimming and diving seniors have done while out in the wider world.
All hail Division III.
Operating in Two Dimensions
Bates College Senior Andrew Brigs (Image courtesy of Bates Athletics)
Bates College senior Andrew Briggs took a journey down south this summer, leaving Maine for Maryland and the study of physics for the application of engineering.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is a pretty lofty title for the federal agency that works with industry to standardize measurements and apply technology. NIST was founded in 1901 to promote innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing the science of measurement, standards and technology. There are two headquarters: Boulder, CO and Gaithersburg, MD.
Briggs is a Maine native. He stumbled upon the opportunity in Maryland courtesy of his math advisor. “Out of the blue [she] emailed me and she said, ‘Hey, there’s this internship or research program that’s going on down in Maryland.’ I think she was the advisor to the young woman who did it the year before me.” The program intrigued Briggs, who was – to his knowledge – only the second student from Bates to have applied.
“I applied to a couple other programs,” Briggs added. “Some programs that I probably wasn’t qualified for – more focused in electric engineering, where I’m more focused in physics.” While Briggs wasn’t accepted into those other programs, it hardly mattered. The internship with NIST was through a program called SURF: the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship.
“They have a couple different divisions that kids work in,” Briggs explained. “I was working under the PML, which is the Physical Measurements Laboratory.” His work was with something known as two-dimensional materials.
“Those are materials that are atomically thin and very, very difficult to see,” he explained. “So I was pretty looking at very thin materials under a microscope all summer.” The goal of Briggs’ group was to understand the optimal properties of the 2D materials they were working with.
How did they accomplish this?
With lasers, of course.
“[We were] shining laser lights on them and seeing what happened,” Briggs said. Where that might sound dangerous to the average observer, for Briggs, it was standard daily procedure by the end of the summer. “We looked at a particular 2D material […] four different ways of shining laser light on it and sort of recording our results. Trying to catch my particular lab up with current results that have been published and trying to set them up to expand in the future.”
Briggs explained that this was his first big experience in the lab outside a classroom setting. He said it would be useful in the coming year for his senior thesis, having learned how a lab works.
So, how does the research work?
“At the beginning of the day, I would have to set everything up,” Briggs said. “Setting up” differed, based on what he was looking at – and how he was looking at it.
“The first way I was looking at a laser at the material was called Raman spectroscopy,” he said. In this observation, the laser light interacts with the vibrations inside the material’s molecular structure. “That involved me just turning on a laser, making sure the laser [was] warmed up properly before people start taking measurements with it,” Briggs said. “Then I would start warming up another machine, called the AFM – Atomic Force Microscope. That involved getting a small jug of liquid nitrogen down the hallway, cooling the detectors on the AFM. […] That was a normal day’s set up.”
Depending on what he was doing that day, Briggs might be required to produce his own 2D materials for measurement. “[You produce 2D materials] pretty much using a stamp, like you would stamp a piece of paper, except the stamp I was using was made out of silicone.” From there, Briggs pounded away until his materials were thin enough to be used and then transferred the 2D piece to the Raman or AFM, or another of the laser machines in use that day.
At the end of his internship, Briggs was required to give a fifteen minute talk to a small audience. However, Briggs was selected by his TI to give a speech for the whole SURF program. “I ended up giving the planary talk for the electrical engineering division of the physical measurements laboratory.” Briggs’ talk was half an hour and he presented to an audience of about 180, comprised both of students and researchers alike.
This year, he’ll also be presenting on the topic for the Bates physics program, talking about his experience with the SURF program along with his professor.
So what does a laser-using physicist who is also a swimmer do in his free time?
Competitive eating.
Briggs is part of the Fat Cat Competitive Eating Society at Bates. Unsurprisingly, the society began at the behest of an athlete – possibly a swimmer – about five years previously. The group receives funding from the school, does barbeques and has a pig roast every spring. Until the Manimal challenge at Hoss and Mary’s restaurant was cancelled, they also participated in that heart-attack-disguised-as-food: an eight patty burger, half pound of fries, two coleslaw hot dogs, a Moxie and coffee-cake infused, one pound milkshake.
Probably the highlight of the year is the pig roast in the spring, though, when the Society cooks an entire pig for an entire day. “The reactions that we get – sometimes we have kids from Colby or kids from Bowdin just stop by for athletic events – and they just see us grilling and they’re like, ‘Wait, what is this for?’ And we’re like, ‘This is a club here.’”
With jealous disbelief, the outsiders go on their way, knowing that this kid has got Bates totally mastered.
So Much to Save, So Little Time
Eastern Connecticut University Senior Abby Arisco (Image courtesy of Eastern Athletics)
Abby Arisco is a senior at Eastern Connecticut State University. She has worked as a photographer for the university, is part of the Christian Fellowship, Outdoors club and History club. She also loves off-roading.
With such a hectic schedule, one might wonder when she finds the time to sleep – “When I pass out” – but what’s more interesting is that despite everything, Arisco still finds the time to help out others in need. Along with all her personal groups, Arisco is also a member of Habitat for Humanity and has done a number of relief missions during her collegiate years, visiting places like Haiti and New Orleans to help disaster victims rebuild.
“Throughout the year I try to go for eight disaster relief calls ,” Arisco said. “Last summer I went Haiti on my first mission trip. I’m not really a religious person, but I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to try it anyway.’ And it was definitely an eye-opening experience.”
Arisco has had some very powerful experiences. “We helped Res-Vic children,” she said, explaining that these were sex slave children who were freed from their captors by circumstance. “We let them be children again,” Arisco said. “It made me feel very grateful having my own childhood. And knowing my birthday, because a lot of kids had no idea what their birthday was.”
This past April, Arisco also did some work with the program that originally got her started in community outreach: CREW. The acronym stands for Community Revitalization Efforts of Wallingford. “I was always into community service,” Arisco explained. “The spring trip we went down to Katrina. That trip just made me want to keep going.”
Wallingford is Arisco’s hometown in Connecticut, and when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, a group of teachers from Wallingford traveled 1400 miles to help the city rebuild. The next year, and each year since, the teachers have brought students from local high schools Lyman Hall and Sheehan High for a spring break trip to help continue patching up different locales.
“My very first trip was New Orleans – I went down there to help with Katrina,” Arisco said. “But this past year we went to Oaklahoma to help with the tornado destruction and more.” At twenty-one, Arisco was able to act as a chaperone this go-round.
“We build homes down there. We did a lot of yard work for homes that were destructed by the tornados,” she said. “The people you get meet on the trips are really what make me want to do them.”
For example, Arisco shared a heart-wrenching story of a little girl around eight who she met during a relief effort. “She was about five years old or something when the hurricane happened, and she was alone, stranded on her roof.” Despite her best efforts, Arisco could not get the child to smile, despite all the years between the little girl and the tragedy that had befallen her.
“I tried my hardest,” Arisco said, “but even the cook said the little girl has not smiled since. She has not had hope since everything has happened. And I just want to make people feel hopeful again.”
Arisco was able to inspire hope in at least one disaster victim with a relief trip to Nashville to help with flood destruction.
The woman the group went to help was a collector of stray animals, providing them space to live and food. “She woke up one day and her house was under about a foot and a half or two feet of running water. […] She showed us a rocking chair that you could tell where the water was, and how the top of it was still the color of the normal chair. Just having to wake up to that one day – kind of unreal.”
One of the volunteers pitched the idea of writing the message HOPE in flowers in the woman’s garden, and the group also put a heart in flowers in the front.
“That lady just made me also want to continue this,” Arisco said. “The good stories that come out of it make everyone want to do community service.”
School doesn’t put a stop to Arisco’s relief missions, which may lead one to wonder when she manages to fit in time for homework. Arisco seemed almost sheepish as she said, “I’m really good with time management.” That might be the understatement of the year.
“These trips actually help with my stress, as crazy as that sounds,” Arisco explained. “When I went to Catskills to help out, I was so relieved. It was such a good feeling going there and then coming back. […] I just try to prioritize my things. I try to keep on top of my work.”
With another relief trip planned spring break plan in place for this year, Arisco will have to continue keeping on top of her work. Arisco is helping to plan the Habitat for Humanity alternate spring break trip to Haiti. “We really want to try to go, and it’s an expensive trip. It’s going to be really difficult to get it to fit budget. We could fundraise and everything,” she said. The group Arisco first visited Haiti with has an opening during their spring break week, so hopefully it’ll all work out.
“It would be very exciting if I could get a bunch of people to go down and experience what I experienced,” she concluded. “I’m trying.”
Now that meets have started, check out what’s going on in DIII for this weekend’s swim meet coverage!