At RGS I was fortunate to have many sporting role models in the years above me. I saw girls applying for sports scholarships in the US and decided to follow the same path. About five of us in my year talked about going to America to play our respective sports and having a group with the same aspiration made applying enjoyable, as we were all working towards it together. In the end, we either earned scholarships or decided it wasn’t what we wanted – both fantastic outcomes as it meant, hopefully, there were no regrets.

For me, searching for a hockey scholarship, Chris Bowen, Former RGS Hockey Performance Director, helped open my eyes to the opportunity and presented it as something I could achieve. I am grateful, as I feel he developed me as a player to the level where I could compete with American and other international players for roster spots. Knowing that America was a tangible goal, I looked further into what it would mean to study abroad for four years, talking to the girls in the years above and to others from my club and regional team.

The American degree structure turned out to be a big part of the appeal, beyond the athlete aspect of becoming a Student-Athlete. I struggled to choose my A-levels because too many subjects interested me, and narrowing down to a single degree was harder still. Had I stayed in England, I would have been studying natural sciences, as I wasn’t sure I wanted to study physics alone.

In America you usually don’t declare your major until your second year, which leaves space to take foundation classes in a couple of subjects and try them out. Throughout the degree, you can add a second major, minors or concentrations – allowing for flexibility as certainty about one’s interests develop with time and experience.

I found this flexibility appealing for another reason too. At A-level, I wasn’t sure I could do a physics degree, despite loving the theory so much. I knew the level of mathematics was high, and I didn’t enjoy pure maths, which I found very abstract. The American liberal arts system let me take university-level physics classes without committing to the degree. That allowed me to see how mathematics is actually used within the subject, to experience problem solving at university level and to prove to myself that I could do it, all without the pressure of falling behind if I changed my mind.

I now quite enjoy applied maths, something I would never have said had I not been able to test the subject at this level. I felt that the liberal arts education would foster curiosity across disciplines while still developing a specialisation in one subject. I was excited about the prospect of being able to take the time in my four-year undergraduate to occasionally browse the course catalogue and find something that may have nothing to do with my major but genuinely interested me.

I knew, also, that being a Division 1 Student-Athlete would be very demanding on my time and would teach me valuable skills. In terms of employability, I felt that this adventure across the Atlantic, if successful, would prepare me well for whatever the working world could throw at me. So far, I feel confident that it has.

I was looking for a small school with real college spirit and a sense of community. As exciting as it would have been to study in an American city, I wanted the full campus experience.

Holy Cross is a small liberal arts college with a strong Jesuit heritage, and it was known as a community where people hold the door for one another. It may be a small detail, but hearing about it all the way across the Atlantic says a lot about the community on campus.

Due to Covid travel restrictions, my decision to sign with Holy Cross was informed largely by the people I spoke to: students, coaches and professors. Everyone could not speak highly enough about the education and culture of the college. I sensed a strong pride in all of them, and I understood that alumni still feel a deep connection to the college.

They spoke about how beautiful the campus was, and that it was up on a hill within the city of Worcester, an hour away from Boston. To me, it felt like an ideal location, and I knew I would enjoy walking through the campus to classes every day.

Beyond the immediate environment and ‘aesthetics’ of the experience, I of course had to find the right athletic and academic balance. Athletically, the coach, Lindsay Jackson, had a fantastic vision and valued developing her athletes as a whole person during their time on the team. It was important to me that I would be able to focus on my academics while playing the sport, and this I was assured of by Lindsay.

I was also very impressed by the facilities and felt that training in them every day would contribute to the professional experience of hockey that I was looking for.

On the academic side, Holy Cross’s professors offer ‘office hours’ in which you can work directly with the professor on problem sets. This is made possible by a high faculty to student ratio and was appealing to me as I was apprehensive about the difficulty of the degree I wanted to pursue.

Despite being an undergraduate-only college, there was a strong initiative to expose students to research both in the semester and during breaks. To be able to experience this, and hopefully better inform myself of whether a master’s would be desirable, was another appealing aspect of Holy Cross.

First and foremost, being a Student-Athlete taught me time management. The degree requires at least four classes a semester, often across different departments. The interdepartmental aspect of any given semester’s schedule meant that, by virtue of not knowing another department’s exact semesterly plan, work tended to pile up in certain weeks or even certain days.

In addition to this, American grading means there are multiple assignments across the semester, all counting towards your final grade. There’s less pressure around a single final exam, but every assignment matters, so managing clashes and bottlenecks was essential. You learn to be proactive about communication as all parties involved – the student, faculty and coaching staff – have full schedules which take time to coordinate.

Typically, in season, a Student-Athlete is committed to around 24 hours a week of training, gym sessions and meetings/opponent scouts. Then, there is an additional 4–8 hours of travel for games, recovery sessions and the occasional individual or group session to work through an aspect of play for an upcoming game.

This is added to the four classes a semester, for which attendance was counted towards your final grade, and the opportunity to attend the tutorial-style office hours for help with assignments.

My team also valued the Jesuit tradition, “for and with others”, as many of us volunteered weekly. While classes do become more challenging further into the degree, I felt I was able to improve time management and expand my working capacity such that I could pick up leadership roles within the team, and two part-time jobs: one as a grader within the physics department and another as an athletics event assistant.

While not a large time commitment, the ability to earn some money to put towards enjoying fun aspects of the American education, such as spring break or other, was a great reward for the hard work of being a Student-Athlete.

The season ran from late August to the end of October, a different format to the hockey season in England, but it meant that our hours would reduce for part of the year. Knowing this, there was a natural cycle to the year with regards to what most time and dedication was put.

As a result of the combination of sports and academics, there were certain periods of the year where little space was left for much else. We learnt the value of hard work, but also how to really make the most of the times that we were free of some of those commitments.

I also learned through coaching that leadership isn’t simply telling people what to do. It’s having a vision of the path to success and the experience to know what it will take, then using both to create an environment in which you and your team can pave that path together.

Coaching taught me to pay attention to everyone in the group, to see each person’s strengths and to work out how the group can benefit from what each of them brings. Recognising that everyone has something to contribute is one thing, but helping someone make the most of it is another, and that is what volunteering in a school taught me.

It taught me to hear how someone thinks and perceives a problem, understand what they need to understand, and then communicate in a way that helps. I draw on both lessons constantly at work.

My experience of philanthropy, in terms of giving back, was also an essential part of my education. The Jesuit ideal of being “for and with others” mattered a great deal to me as the team’s community service coordinator – a role I was inspired to strive for by the characters of the girls who held it before me.

Athletes were required to do a handful of volunteering hours each semester, but my coach was passionate about service, and so we committed to 10 hours in season and 20 in the spring. As a standalone, that may not seem impactful or substantial, but adding another commitment to already packed schedules demonstrates the value we attached to acts of service.

Most importantly, I came away understanding that service isn’t a chore. I’m so grateful for the bonds I made with the teachers at the local school, and I’ll always remember the happiness on the students’ faces when I would arrive. Even though I was there for just an hour or so per week, I felt the value in that commitment through the community it was building.

I tried to advocate for this within the team: service can be something you look forward to, and it builds both a stronger community and pride within that community.

Most importantly, my time at Holy Cross gave me lifelong friends and a connection to a very special place.

The families of my teammates were so incredibly kind and took me under their wing and into their homes. I will carry that with me and hope to pass that forward one day. The culture of many families at the college, which I generalise to the wider American population, was one of generosity, friendliness and sharing. This I bring back with me in memory of how pleasant I found that experience to be.

Generally, I experienced a strong 'let’s do it' attitude. If we wanted to go somewhere, we booked it; if we wanted to achieve something, we started working towards it together. I’ll carry that willingness to support each other’s endeavours with me also.

The transition from university into professional life has been, and will continue to be, an exciting challenge. I’ve always wanted to work in energy, whether through a financial institution, a physical trading house, or, as I thought at one point, technically using my physics degree. Coming from the pace and demands of Division 1 sport, I wanted a dynamic team environment, and Glencore is exactly that.

The transition required a rebase of my knowledge. While I still use analytical thinking and applied maths, the language and context within which the analytics sit is foreign when compared to a degree in Physics. Fortunately, it is quite predictable that the subject matter of physics, mostly, will not translate out of the field.

I knew I would need to make the transition at some point, so I planned for it early. As a freshman in the locker room during pre-season, I heard how many of the seniors had completed internships and secured jobs after graduation. Just as I’d been exposed to the idea of the US at RGS, I had now seen a path for myself post-graduation and decided to work towards it.

I front-loaded my physics courses so that senior year could be a skill-building year for the workforce. After my internship with Glencore the summer before senior year, I enrolled in introductory economics and financial accounting to build a foundation in finance, as well as a coding course.

Even with this, physical commodity trading, whether power, biofuels, LNG, freight or carbon, isn’t something you learn in a university course. The transition takes a dedication to reading and a willingness to ask questions again and again of whoever you’re working with.

Being a Student-Athlete set me up well for the corporate environment. The trading floor is dynamic, and so you must work well with many people while finding it comfortable to switch between tasks, drawing on a broad base of knowledge. I credit my liberal arts education for that.

I’ve found it useful to be able to balance efficient research and building my own understanding with knowing when to collaborate: recognising that someone has more expertise, and that together we can solve the problem.

We’re at an interesting time with the emergence of AI. Used well, it’s a powerful productivity tool, but it also removes the friction of learning a new topic. AI can always give you an answer, but you need the subject knowledge to know when it has missed the mark.

I’m grateful AI wasn’t a strong presence in my education, and I hope young people recognise the value of the struggle, so that one day, with a solid knowledge base, they can use a tool like AI well. I understand the temptation, with so many competing demands on exceptional students like those at RGS, to save some brainpower by letting AI take away the friction.

AI might be able to send applications, but a job requires a person with real knowledge who can convey it in conversation – that is something AI can’t do. I hope young people continue to have a chance to experience learning in such a way as it is most useful.

Knowing the opportunities that exist empowers you to take a path you may not have known was there. It could lead to an adventure that gives you some of your favourite memories and a career doing something you truly enjoy.

We’re all unique, and finding the learning and working environment that suits you and drives you to succeed is essential. RGS does a fantastic job of presenting pupils with a wide range of further education options, and the wealth of experience in the Reigatian network can expand that awareness even further.

I’d absolutely encourage former pupils to share their experiences and offer mentoring to the next generation.

For a Reigatian considering studying in the US, particularly if they hope to combine their studies with a sporting scholarship, practically speaking, reach out to someone who has studied in America and ask what life could be like.

From those conversations, learn how an American education works, what the time demands of sport are, and what the culture is like. Find out which recruiting agencies people used and how they showcased themselves to earn a scholarship, as that can be the hardest part of the process.

Izzy's Top Tip

Find your why.

Why do you want to do this, or why not?

The move from school to the outside world, whether university or an apprenticeship, is a major landmark, so understand as best you can why you’ve chosen your path, and minimise surprises by researching well.

No one knows for certain how a given decision will age. Even with all the research in the world, you can’t know how you’ll feel stepping off the plane to start your studies in the US.

But knowing why you got on that plane in the first place will help you weather the challenging moments, the ones that may make you want to change your mind but are really just an expected part of taking an adventurous path.