 Hi, I'm Jess Riga. I'm a junior from Citroën, Massachusetts, and I'm studying applied mathematics And I'm part of the women's track and field teams. I knew growing up I mean I played sports my whole life and then in high school I continued to play sports all the time And I knew as my high school career was ending that I wanted to continue athletics And I didn't want to give up my you know athletic career yet and looking at D3 schools It was really important to me that they showed such a strong passion for you know your sport And they showed a lot of passion here for track But also academics and it was that good balance for me of you know I can still continue my passion and be a part of a team that has a lot of passion for the same thing that I do Then go to the classroom and be with kids who have the great passion for you know Math for me in that case and then also still have time to have those friends outside of my sport and hang out with others So it's good balance and then when I visited Stevenson the sense of community it had and the sense of unity That was here is what ultimately really drew me here And I knew being far away from home I would still feel like this could be my second home and I'd feel very welcomed here. I Definitely want to go into the business field with my mathematic background And maybe become an analyst and look at that type of information So I think being on a team and having that sense of teamwork and that sense of communication is huge Being a student-athlete you have to communicate with a lot of people whether it's coaches or professors or other teammates So definitely in the workforce, that's really going to help me there and definitely time management You know student-athlete there's a lot to juggle sometimes and that will definitely prepare me And I'll be ready for whatever it has to throw at me I mean some nights there's late nights and you're gonna have to deal with it You know sometimes everything all has the same due date The big meets are at the same time the semester ends and that's definitely kind of a hard thing to juggle But when you have people willing to help you when you've been working all semester and kind of planning ahead That's definitely that was definitely the hardest part Recently in the last month. I had a great meet. It was our opening meet for the indoor season And I hit a PR and that was really big for me because as I said it was at the end of the semester I had been working so hard in track and school But you know come that Saturday when I had to throw I was able to pull everything together and let all my hard work That I put into track show and I was really proud of that moment to finally you know break the barrier into a new meter and Just grow as a thrower