Ceely is majoring inBiomedical 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 women’s swimmer Kiera Ceely, a junior who is majoring in Biomedical Engineering, joins us for a new edition of Scholar-Athlete Spotlight.
Hailing from Derwood, Maryland, Kiera’s top performances so far this season were at the October 27th meet at Lynn, where she earned third place in the 1000 Free and 400 IM. At this year’s Panther Invite, she won the B Final of the 500 Free.
Ceely has been named to the Sunshine State Conference Commissioner’s and Florida Tech Athletic Director’s Honor Roll after each of her first two seasons.
Kiera joined us to talk about what she wants to get out of her major and how she makes it all work.
■ Tell us a little bit about your major here at Florida Tech, what made you choose it?
I am a biomedical engineering major, and I chose it because in middle school I was in a program called Project Lead the Way and it goes all the way up until your senior year of high school.
You learn about all kinds of different engineering fields, and I had a project during high school that had us researching what you would want to be when you were older, and I found out biomedical engineering was the thing, and I thought it was super interesting. I’ve always wanted to do something with healthcare, but I didn’t think I would be the best person to be maybe a doctor or a nurse, so I thought biomedical engineering was the best of both worlds.
■ What do you want to do with that major once you’ve graduated?
I would really like to work on the more pharmaceutical side with more of the medicine parts than the prosthetics and stuff, but I’m not 100% sure yet. My major is kind of finally getting into the specifics this year, and I think that’ll help me narrow it down even more.
■ What was it about Florida Tech that made you want to be here?
So, the biggest things were that my dad and my grandpa both went to school in Florida so that was a big draw of having a similar connection of going to college in a warm climate, as well as the fact that my sister was close by and that I could experience being far away from my family.
But ultimately, that didn’t really end up working out because my family moved to Florida recently, so now we’re very close by but I just really wanted to see what the college experience of Florida would be like.
■ What’s something from your classes that you didn’t know about your major before?
Honestly, the biggest thing that I’ve learned in the past year and this year, is the way that you can use coding to be able to simulate certain things that I wouldn’t have thought you could. That’s the biggest thing, like right now we’ve simulated trying to find different peaks of EEGS and isolating certain things that can help you develop technology further.
■ Is there a teammate or fellow athlete who you’ve become study buddies with?
I do! There’s two women that are in my major that are on the women’s lacrosse team, and we definitely text all the time trying to make sure we’re getting our answers right or meeting up to study in the library, or just like double checking like ‘hey, I’m confused on this, could you help me?’ and they’ve definitely helped me through it.
■ What are some things you need to get the most out of study time? Do you have a playlist or need to be by yourself in a room?
It honestly, truly depends what class it is. If I’m coding or doing anything like that, I think best when I have music playing but if I’m trying to study and remember things for an exam of where I need to be more focused, I try not to listen to music and I use flashcards and I’m by myself in my room just trying to isolate and focus instead of getting distracted by other people around me.
■ How has being a collegiate athlete prepared you for what you’re doing now and what do you take from the pool that you apply to your studies?
I definitely think being a collegiate athlete has helped me to be the person I am today, just through the desire of throughout my club and high school career of swimming, just making it to this point is a dream for me.
Also, having that routine that’s been created for me throughout high school and now in college of you have this practice, then you have to go to class, you have to get this assignment done. It’s taught me the most valuable thing, which I believe is time management.
Swimming has also brought to me the idea of work ethic, just making sure you’re putting in 100% all the time or putting in as much as you can of what you can give that day because not every day is going to be your best day and you have to be okay with that. That’s also a lesson it taught me, that not every day you’re going to be at your best and that’s okay, you just have to give what you can.
Those are two of the biggest things that I’ve learned is just try your best and you’ll get what you get, and time management.
■ What advice would you give to an athlete coming to Florida Tech that has an interest in Biomedical Engineering?
I would definitely encourage them! I’m the only person with my major on the swim team as of right now, but every time somebody asked me, a new recruit or anything, I love my major.
Sometimes it does get a little challenging. In the beginning, you are in a lot of Gen Ed’s, but that’s the same with every major, so I think you got to stick it through, even though that they’re super hard, or they can be very challenging. You’ve got to push through because as you get into the course more and more, they become more interesting and more focused on biomedical engineering specifically, and you have other classes that aren’t 100% to do with biomedical and everything, but you definitely just need to push through and get through those Gen Ed’s and I think they’d like it.
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