{"id":9799,"date":"2016-01-30T11:11:07","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T16:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9799"},"modified":"2016-02-02T11:28:02","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T16:28:02","slug":"how-i-got-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=9799","title":{"rendered":"How I Got Here: Brenna Strollo \u201917"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The 2012\u201313 NJAC Rookie of the Year in women\u2019s swimming talks carb loading, the joys of apple picking, and living an \u201camaXing\u201d life.<\/h2>\n

\"brenna_withrule\"
[Photo by Matt Furman]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>><\/strong><\/span> I played almost every sport there was in middle school\u2014basketball, soccer, tennis, track\u2014but they weren\u2019t\u00a0for me. Swimming was always my favorite, so when I started exploring\u00a0colleges, I was looking for a school with a great nursing program and a competitive swim team. TCNJ has both.<\/p>\n

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><\/span><\/strong> My favorite events are the 100-yard backstroke, the 100-yard butterfly, and the 200-yard individual medley and medley relay. I have really strong underwater streamlines, and I\u2019ve always been a backstroker, which is why I love the 200 IM. I get to swim a little bit of everything.<\/p>\n

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><\/strong><\/span> I start preparing for races with what I eat the night before: It\u2019s always spaghetti for dinner\u2014and whenever possible, my family\u2019s homemade pasta sauce. The mental preparation kicks in when I\u2019m on the starting block. Regardless of the event, I\u2019m reminding myself that it\u2019s just another race, and that I can do well for myself and\u2014more important\u2014my team.<\/p>\n

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><\/strong><\/span> Swimming has opened my eyes to a lot of things. When I was younger, my swim team hosted meets to raise money for Make Some Noise: Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, and we worked with children out of the pool at the hospital. That was when I first considered becoming a nurse.<\/p>\n

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><\/strong><\/span> It\u2019s a challenge juggling practice with my all-day clinical assignments, but it keeps me organized and motivated. And it\u2019s all worth it when I get to work in local hospitals. I\u2019ve learned so much from the nurses there; they\u2019ve gone through many of the same experiences I\u2019m going through now.<\/p>\n

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><\/strong><\/span> I\u2019m a founding member of Alpha Xi Delta, a new sorority on campus. One of the charities we support is Autism Speaks. Last fall, my 105 \u201camaXing\u201d sisters and I hosted a Xiti with the Xis event to raise money for families with children with autism. It\u2019s been rewarding working with the organization.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

><\/strong><\/span> Between swimming and schoolwork, I don\u2019t have much free time, but when I do, I like to have movie nights, hang out in Princeton, or go apple picking with my teammates. It\u2019s simple things like that that remind me I made the right choice when I came to TCNJ.<\/p>\n

\u2014as told to Brandon Gould<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2012\u201313 NJAC Rookie of the Year in women\u2019s swimming talks carb loading, the joys of apple picking, and living an \u201camaXing\u201d life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,9,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lions-roar","category-on-campus","category-winter-2016"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}