Megan Riksen:

Hello and welcome to the Work Like A Laker Podcast. I'm Megan Riksen, joined by my co-host, grace Joaquin. And today we are talking about the experiences of our student athletes on campus. And with the demands that student athletes face approaching career decisions and gaining work experience in college might look different for them.

Grace Joaquin:

So if you're a student athlete at Grand Valley or boast a busy athletic schedule as a member of an intermurals team or as a coach, this episode is for you. We'll discuss everything from how to communicate the skills you've gained from athletics on your resume to tips for adjusting to a professional role after being an athlete. And we'll get to hear from a former GVSU student athlete who discusses their own experiences with moving from the student athlete world to the world of work.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, so we're gonna be talking about student athletes. So we're framing this episode around students who are also varsity athletes, but many of the takeaways I think are gonna be really relatable to any student who is juggling a lot of commitments while in school, which I mean probably most of us. Right. and I'm also just putting in a quick little personal note that I'm happy to be covering this topic because I was not a college athlete. I was not a student athlete, but I was a graduate assistant in the Laker Academic Success Center at Grand Valley. So for two years I was working with student athletes for like 20 hours a week, so, oh, how

Grace Joaquin:

Fun. Yeah,

Megan Riksen:

So it's fun to kind of chat about it. All right. So before we jump into any of of our other content I think we should introduce our guest. So our guest is Hannah Beatus, who is a former GVSU student athlete. She's gonna respond to a few questions for us. Hannah was a softball player at GVSU and she actually completed both her undergraduate and graduate programs here. And now she works at Stryker Sage as an associate sales representative. So Hannah, let's start by asking what did a typical day as a student athlete look like for you both in and out of season?

Hannah Beatus:

You know, a typical day really depended on if we were in our fall season or if we were in our winter slash spring season. The fall was always pretty chill just because you're only practicing, you don't have the time demands of games. So it's really just you're limited to a certain amount of hours that you can practice and play in the fall, which is helpful, especially if you have a coach who is respectful of those hours and doesn't try to bend the rules when it comes to those hours, which the softball program at GVSU has always been absolutely amazing when it comes to allowing us to be able to focus our time on our academics and also athletics as well. So we had a lot of free space to be able to, you know, figure out what we wanted our schedule to look like in the fall, and especially when it came to credit load and demands.

Hannah Beatus:

And a lot of us would take our harder classes in the fall just because we knew it was a little bit more relaxed. And then when the spring rolled around, a little bit different of a story just because you're not only balancing the demands of practice between lift and working on your particular position and hitting and pitching and whatever else you might have to focus on in team practice. And then not only having to do that but then balance the time demands of being on a bus for hours a week and traveling during the weekends, or even traveling for midweek games and missing classes and juggling missing tests and assignments and and that kind of thing. So really just kind of depended based off of what point in the season that we were in. And then especially for me playing my sport both in undergrad and then also as a grad student, you know, that really looked different for me when I compare those two different seasons of life of in undergrad, you know, <laugh>. I really thought that, wow, like I really don't have a whole lot of time to do anything. And then you get to grad school and you're like, wow, I really don't have a whole lot of time to do anything and I need to be very selfish about my time, quite frankly. So really just kind of depended on what point of the season that we were in.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah. Wow. That sounds like a lot. Yeah, thanks for sharing. So let's move on to what do you wish more people on campus knew about being a student athlete?

Hannah Beatus:

You know, I really was reflecting on this question and thinking about this question and I probably would've had a different answer while I was in college. But looking back on it now, I think it's just the time demands and most importantly, the way that those time demands impact your sleep schedule. And sleep is something that I really prioritize now, and it's something that I really wish I would've pri prioritized more as a college student too, of you are so all over the place. Like I remember specifically even just freshman year, coming back from a road trip on a Sunday night and we didn't get back to campus until like two or three in the morning. And then you gotta wake up, turn around, go to class the next morning at 8:30 AM in Mackinac. Like, you know, the impacts on your sleep and your performance in the classroom too. I think that those time demands can really, if you're not organized or responsible, can really start to catch up with you. And so I would say just how hectic those different seasons of, you know, not only life but also just different seasons of your sport of fall. You get into a routine and then you come back from winter break and all of a sudden it's, you're having to figure out an entirely new routine and that can take a lot of, a lot of trial and error.

Grace Joaquin:

Wow, that sounds like a lot to manage. I'm guessing you learned a lot through that experience. So can you tell me what's one skill you feel you most developed during your time as a student athlete and how do you use this skill in your present day at work?

Hannah Beatus:

I think there was a ton of transferable skills that I was able to learn as a student athlete that I apply in my daily life now, but it's gonna sound kind of cliche, but the biggest one honestly, is just organization and accountability and ownership of my work and what I do. You know, when you, when you play a sport, it's really easy, especially if you're a physical con contributor, to be able to see your hard work start to pay off for your team, whether that be through wins and accolades and awards and, you know, you don't really get that kind of immediate sort of gratification, I guess now in, in the real world. And so it really takes a lot of self-awareness to be able to have control of your schedule, especially for my role, what I do now, working with Stryker, you know, I have a lot of responsibility to organize my weeks and had I not been a student athlete, I think I would probably kind of struggle with that just a little bit just because know I had to be so organized to a tee in college because of all of the things that I was juggling and the accountability to be at a certain place at a certain time and to wake up at five in the morning to get to five 30, you know, rehab before practice.

Hannah Beatus:

So all of those things I see transfer into my present day with work. And then, you know, one of the other biggest ones I would say as well is just leadership. You know, you learn a lot of things, whether that's, it doesn't even have to be just in your sport. It could be being part of a sorority or a a fitness group or whatever, whatever kind of groups that you might be a part of. You have some real opportunities in college to be able to figure out what kind of leader you are and how you lead. And I truly believe that everybody is a leader in their own way and might just look different person to person. And that's okay. And college really affords you that opportunity to be able to figure that out because then it really helps you when you get into the real world and you know, you're not a, not a, a, a needy worker per se, where you're always needing guidance and you always need help some figuring something out, like you're a self-starter and you can, you can problem solve and you can use those skills that you learned as a college student to, you know, kind of, kind of figure those things out.

Megan Riksen:

Great. Yeah, those are all really good points. Great skills. I can definitely see how you would develop that as a student athlete. And since you mentioned experiences, can you talk a little bit about the experiences you got involved with in addition to being a student athlete while at Grand Valley and how did you find the time to do that?

Hannah Beatus:

One of the most awesome experiences that I ever got to be a part of that was outside of my student athlete bubble that I am so grateful that I did is I was part of the Stein Center's Cook Leadership Academy. And that was one of the coolest, most amazing way for me to get to meet other people outside of sports and really break me out of that kind of silo and out of my shell in that way and learn a ton about different experiences and people from different majors and different backgrounds and who had different career focuses. And getting to go to those leadership talks and hear from people in the community who are just doing such amazing things at GV and outside of gv in in their regular, in their regular work was just something that was truly awesome and really shaped me in how I view leadership and how I've been able to develop as a leader as well when it comes to finding time to engage in things outside of, you know, your busy day-to-day life.

Hannah Beatus:

I am a firm believer of everybody has time and if you don't believe me, literally pull out your phone and look at your screen time. Like if you're spending two hours a day on TikTok, that is two hours a day that you could use to be part of a different campus organization or a campus group or to go make an impact or, or to go volunteer or better yet to take a nap, like to get some sleep or to be able to not procrastinate on that paper or go get coffee with a friend or I, I could, I could just keep going on and on. And so I truly, truly believe that we make time for the things that we care about. And if you are somebody who you find yourself saying all the time that, oh, I don't have time, I don't have time, you do, you just maybe don't care as much about that thing as you should or as you think that you should. And so I think that takes a lot of self-reflection and you know, having the hard conversation with yourself and looking at yourself in the mirror sometimes and just, you know, figuring out what do I care about? What do I wanna dedicate times towards? Is this helping me? Is this making me a better human? Is this making the people around me better? And so that was something that I truly was as intentional as I possibly could be as I was a student athlete.

Grace Joaquin:

Wow. That was some advice that I needed to hear. I think especially about the screen time, I know I've seen people do challenges where they will replace screen time with reading or other things and I just think that that's something that we can all consider and I know that I would benefit from that. So thank you for sharing. And our final question to you Hannah, is as a student athlete, you have a large Laker network. Who are some mentors that you've worked with as a student athlete and how did their guidance impact your professional development?

Hannah Beatus:

One of the most amazing parts about the Cook Leadership Academy is that we were all assigned sort of like a dedicated mentor depending on what career field we wanted to go into. And the Cook Leadership Academy led me to even my mentor now who I meet with for coffee all the time and talk with on the phone. Walter Moore, he's no longer at Grand Valley, he's retired and living his best life in retirement. But yeah, Walter was the director of student athlete development at GV in the athletics office and he just played such a huge role in my professional, but most importantly, just my personal development of, we had dedicated time every week, every other week where we would just chat and catch up and ask any kind of questions. Sometimes it was like super serious, like life and Phil philosophical questions and books that we were reading and then other times it was so lighthearted and just checking in on how both of us were doing.

Hannah Beatus:

And so that really opened a lot of doors for me when it came to figuring out what I wanted to do, making those connections. He was such a well connected guy, still is such a well connected guy and somebody that I always know that I can lean on if I ever need to, you know, have a conversation with somebody or if I wanna make a career pivot. He was one of the first people that I called when I just accepted my new job at Stryker. And so just he was, he truly is just one of the most amazing human beings ever. And, you know, I encourage every single person it, whether you're a student athlete or whether you're in a sorority or maybe you're not in a campus organization yet or in a campus group yet, but seek out those people that you want to be like and ask them those questions of maybe it's someone who, maybe it's a professor who's doing something that you think that you might wanna do. You know, I think a lot of people are intimidated when it comes to asking those questions or seeking out a mentor. And personally I think one of the greatest honors that someone could ever have is being asked to be a mentor to somebody and to, and to guide you. And so take that first step 'cause you just truly, truly never know what kind of connections that that is gonna be able to help you with and you know, the kind of doors that it's gonna be able to open for you.

Megan Riksen:

Great. Excellent advice. Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom and all of your experiences as a student athlete and moving into your professional life. So thanks again, Hannah. Now. Great. So I'm thinking maybe we should talk through just briefly some of the skills that student athletes might want to highlight on their resume. We can kind of just a little rapid fire go through some of these. What do you think? Yeah,

Grace Joaquin:

Let's cool. Yeah, great. Let's go through a few examples. Yeah, actually Hannah mentioned a couple, but we'll, we'll

Megan Riksen:

Talk about that. That's,

Grace Joaquin:

That's great. The first one is time management. You know, as a student you have a pretty set schedule where you're, you know, what classes to attend and when, when your homework assignments are due. When you're employed, it's often not quite the same where your time is more your own, which can be great, but also means you have to be better at prioritizing your time. And so that time management piece really comes into play there.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. This is one that Hannah also mentioned, but leadership is certainly a skill you develop as a student athlete, even if you weren't the formal team captain or some sort of actual leadership role, you still have a strong foundation of leadership that's developed just through being a part of a team representing that team on campus. I think that that can be viewed as leadership as well. So taking the time to reflect on some of those experiences and ways you might have displayed leadership can be really helpful as you're kind of navigating the job search process.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah, that's a great one. Another is teamwork and if you, even if you're on an individual sport, you are still a part of a team and same thing in an office or at a workplace, you might be working formally in teams or it might just be more informal, but either way you're collaborating and being able to highlight that as a student athlete and showcase how you've done that previously will look really great to an employer.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, for sure. Great discipline is our next skill and yeah, student athletes have to be disciplined as we talked about with, you know, your schedule and managing all the different things happening in your life. But also when it comes to, you know, maintaining eligibility and following the rules of your sport itself. Maybe it's your discipline in your workout program the workout routines you need to do in order to become better at the sport you're practicing. So this discipline definitely can translate into the workplace and should be something that you can be highlighting to a future employer.

Grace Joaquin:

Another one that I honestly didn't think of until we started planning this podcast Yeah. Is verbal communication. Because as an athlete, you know, you have to communicate a lot, you have to communicate with your teammates and your coach to be able to understand the plays and make sure you're all on the same page and that's just not an aspect. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. And I wasn't a student athlete, so Yeah. You know, I didn't really think about that, but that's such a big piece. And so I think that's important. This is a good example of why it's important to think through these things and then learn how to talk about that in an interview so that you can show people who weren't student athletes why you have that skill and how you gained it. And one way you can do that is by practicing the star method listening to some more of our interviewing podcasts. So just think about how can you talk about this skill of verbal communication in a way that people will understand, because that's a huge one in workplaces. Yes. Big. Yeah,

Megan Riksen:

Really big. Yeah, good point. Coachability and ability to incorporate feedback is another skill. You certainly are honing as a student athlete. 'cause You have to be open to feedback. I can't think of a single sport where you are allowed to just close yourself off from your coach's feedback and just say, Nope, I know better. No athletes, no. They're listening to their coach. That person knows what they're doing and is there only to help you. And that certainly translates to a workplace where of course you'll have a boss, a supervisor, but you also need to be able to incorporate feedback from your fellow coworkers, from the people who work for you, maybe eventually down the road. So the ability to, you know, incorporate that feedback, I think is really important and something you can also bring up

Grace Joaquin:

And it just demonstrates a growth and learning mindset. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's so important to any employer. Another one is adaptability. And I think that this is probably one of the top skills that employers care about because in almost any job you have to be adaptable and flexible. You never know what your day might look like. You don't know what someone might ask of you and how you might have to shift your mindset in that day or your schedule. Right.

Megan Riksen:

Does that ever happen to you, grace in your day?

Grace Joaquin:

<Laugh>, definitely. Yes. I know. I can't think of many jobs where that wouldn't be the case. Right. So you know, and as, as an athlete you definitely have to show that adaptability. And so being able to talk about that with employers is huge.

Megan Riksen:

Great. And then persistence certainly a skill that you are developing through your athletic pursuits, right? You're continuously attending practices and games and working on your different skill sets. This all requires persistence and like pushing through various obstacles and I just really see a lot of alignment there with not only just the job search itself, you need to be persistent because typically that is not a one and done type of process, but also it is so valuable in an employee as you're working on long projects, as you might be navigating something that you try that you failed at even, you know, remaining attentive in some of those, like maybe a little more boring back to back meetings. Like those things that are a part of like really every job that all requires persistence and that's something that a student athlete Yeah. Has lots of experience with.

Grace Joaquin:

I think that skill is something that I truly admire and yeah, try to work on myself. I think it's a great skill. Our final one is, is maybe it's slightly different than the rest and that's physical abilities. Although this may not seem necessary for many career paths, strength and stamina can serve student athletes well in the workplace. Careers in certain industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and even event management may require long shifts on your feet doing physical tasks or other various things that require that physical ability and being athletic may help student athletes adjust more readily than non-athletes to more physically demanding career choices.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So look at you. You're already so prepared. Yes. <Laugh> for some of these demands. That's great. Awesome. So when you're thinking about making this transition from athlete to professional, the skills that we just covered very easily translate into let's say like a sports focused career, something like coaching or becoming an athletic director. But we also wanna make the point that the majority of these skills really are transferrable to any career and workplace. And if you're facing an interview and still thinking about some instances or, or examples of how your student athlete experience could be an asset to an employer, don't be afraid to enlist the help of the coaches you've worked with over the years. The mentors you have advisors in the career center. We are of course here to help. Career Lab is always a resource, is a drop in. And our career connectors and advisors are always happy to kind of help walk you through some potential examples or maybe some things you wanna put on your resume or give you some practice of how you might talk about these things in an interview.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah, great. And if you're looking for ways to gain experience as a student athlete, some short term experiences with less time commitment than a typical internship might include Parker, Dewey, micro internships, companies that are athlete friendly, like Quicken Loans slash Rocket Mortgage. The Detroit Lions has a two week internship and December every year. And then there's also some on campus internships that might be more flexible.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, I think that flexibility is kind of the, the huge piece or those, those micro type internships like Grace mentioned that could maybe fit in just during kind of that off season like Hannah was mentioning where she might have had a a couple free hours in a day. Yes.

Grace Joaquin:

And we do have a, a podcast episode

Megan Riksen:

About that. We sure do. <Laugh> Yes, please go check that out. Absolutely. Okay, great. Well, I think we have covered this topic pretty well. Hopefully all the student athletes and even non-student athletes in the audience, we're able to gain something. So thank you so much to everyone for listening and we hope you tune into a future episode soon.