Cowles is majoring in Aerospace Engineering
BREVARD COUNTY • MELBOURNE, FLORIDA – Being a scholar-athlete at Florida Tech takes an incredible amount of hard work and dedication to excel both in the classroom and on the field.
Panther men’s cross country runner Michael Cowles, a senior who is majoring in Aerospace Engineering, joins us for a new edition of Scholar-Athlete Spotlight.
Making the trip to Melbourne after attending high school in Huntsville, Alabama, Michael’s top time this season was at the UAH Chargers Invitational on October 7th, where he recorded a 27:14.40 finish.
Michael joined us to talk about what he wants to get out of such an ambitious major and what drew him to it.
Tell us a little bit about your major here at Florida Tech, what made you choose it?
I’m an aerospace engineering major focused on astronautics. I chose it because ever since I was four years old, I decided I wanted to help NASA get to Mars. That’s kind of been my goal and it’s still my goal today.
We usually ask what people want to do with their degrees, but it sounds like you’ve got it pretty mapped out already. What was it about Florida Tech that made you want to be here?
I was originally in high school in Huntsville, Alabama. Then my family found out we were moving during COVID, and so I started looking around, it was between Florida Tech and UCF.
UCF didn’t have a cross-country team, so I looked at Florida Tech. Within probably 10 minutes of emailing Coach Mazzone, he actually called my phone and spoke to me. That really made me want to stay here.
Growing up in Huntsville and then living 45 minutes south of the Kennedy Space Center, sounds like it was destiny. Given your passion for the topic, what’s something from your classes that you didn’t know about your major before?
The amount of work that really goes into it, I’ve been exposed to that a lot. I’ve had opportunities with internships and such that have really helped (???) as well. But for me, the class load has really helped me understand like what goes into aerospace engineering and what it’s about.
Is there a teammate or fellow athlete who you’ve become study buddies with?
During my first two years, I worked with some people from the swim team, the rowing team, cross country team. Even now, some of the younger guys, we’ll help each other on certain topics that we may not understand as much.
How has being a collegiate athlete prepared you for what you’re doing now and what do you take from the course that you apply to your studies?
With cross country, a lot of cross country is more of a mental game than a physical game.
When you’re racing, you have to stay in it mentally just as much as you do physically. So for me, pushing myself through classes knowing I can, like I push myself through races really helps contribute to how I do well in classes.
What advice would you give to an athlete coming to Florida Tech who has an interest in Aerospace Engineering?
Most important thing is balance. You need to make sure you balance your schoolwork, your athletics and your personal life.
You need to make sure to do everything, make sure there’s a nice balance of everything because if you don’t, you burn out quick and it’s just not worth it.
What’s something that you’ve done in your classes that you’re proud of?
So for me, I would say more with the internship experiences I’ve had.
So far, I’ve worked with NASA Goddard up in Maryland, and I got to help out on some really big projects. One project is the Roman Space Telescope, which is pretty big, it’s the next major telescope that’s going to be going out.
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