Hi everyone!

My name is Annika Pandey and I am a first-year at the University of Chicago. We have just finished our 5th week of classes and midterm exams. Tennis is in “offseason”, which means we no longer have official practice with our coaches, but we do have “captain’s practices” and lifts with our trainer. During our fall season, we played two tournaments, one in Rhode Island and one in Michigan, our ITA Regionals. Overall, my college experience has been really great so far.

One thing I want to talk about is sacrifice. As a student-athlete, I know all of you are already familiar with this concept, but sacrifice has become a huge part of my life in college. I have so many responsibilities I need to take care of on a daily basis. In college, you will find that you have school and tennis to take care of, which in my opinion, should be your top priorities. Then you have extracurricular activities and clubs, social life, career advancement opportunities, and sleep and mental/physical health to consider as well. There are not enough hours in the day or days in the week to do everything you have to or want to do. You are going to have to make sacrifices on a daily basis in order to do what’s best for you or your team. When I first got to UChicago, I didn’t understand this. I thought I would be able to do everything I wanted or had to do. I tried to do everything and I ended up exhausted, stressed, and unhappy, while not even accomplishing what I wanted. Now that I’ve acclimated to college life, I get that I can’t do everything. It is so so important to have your priorities straight and use your time efficiently and effectively.

A piece of advice I have for y’all as you prepare for college is to develop strong communication skills. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be an effective communicator. Learning to communicate with others can literally change your entire college experience. Whether it’s communicating with professors or TAs (become friends with your TAs!! They grade everything in your classes and basically control your fate), coaches, or students, you can open so many doors for yourself. One thing I’ve learned at UChicago is that your ability to communicate and make connections with people is just as and sometimes more important than your grades. The relationships you build now could end up getting you an incredible internship over the summer that translates into a job post-graduation.

The final thing I want to say is to appreciate what you have right now. When I was in high school I couldn’t wait to go to college, move away from home, and be independent. While college is awesome, it’s a whole different ball game. It can be really hard at first when you don’t have a support system around you to help you through tough times. The ATA community is so supportive, and I think you’ll find that when you go to college, you won’t have the same environment to rely on all the time. School is really hard, tennis is a demanding time commitment, and everything else going on can really take a toll on you. You’ll learn to juggle everything eventually, but it’s definitely a struggle at first. Be grateful for everything you have right now because it’s all definitely very special and finite. College is kind of like being thrown into the deep end of a pool where you have to learn to swim with little or no help from others. I promise once you learn to swim it’ll be so fun and great and an incredible experience though!!

I would love to answer any questions anyone has about college or the college process so please feel free to contact me if you want to talk!

Best,

Annika Pandey

Hi Coach Newman and ATA,

Hope everyone is doing well. Coach Newman has asked us to write about tips we would give for college and what we would do differently to prepare. I am currently halfway through my first semester of college and let me start with this. Whoever says the first week of college is fun lied. Being in a  new place with new people I would be lying if I told you the first week that I was here I didn’t cry on the phone to Coach John. He told me it was all going to work out and yet again he was right. I now consider my teammates my best friends and I can’t imagine myself anywhere else.

One thing I have noticed in college is communication is very important. Communicating with your professors about missed classes and makeup work is a skill that is very necessary in order to stay on top of your school work. Time management and keeping track of classes are also very important. With a given schedule of what is due for the whole semester in the first week, it is your job to stay on top of dates and what you need to get done.

A throwback of Synclair to 2013

As for tennis we just finished our fall season and coming up on off season in a few weeks. ATA has done a great job with teaching how to be an accountable teammate. On my team, if someone is late or not wearing the correct uniform we are all held accountable. College is a lot of fun and freedom, but you get out exactly what you put in whether its school or tennis it’s all on you. If you are deciding between playing college tennis or not I would say do it! Although sometimes it is difficult I have made so many friends by being a student athlete and my team has become a second family to me.

I am beyond happy with my life here at Northern Colorado and I would love to hear from you!

Best,

Synclair

Seven Austin Tennis Academy alumni and current standout college students, four of whom graduated from ATA College Prep, earned Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar-Athlete status as part of the 2018 ITA All-Academic Awards.

In order to earn ITA Scholar-Athlete status a player must meet the following criteria: 1.) be a varsity letter winner, 2.) have a grade point average of at least 3.50 (on a 4.00 scale) for the current academic year, and 3.) have been enrolled at their present school for at least 2 semesters (including freshman through senior year).

Congratulations to the seven ATA grads and current ITA Scholar-Athletes!

Marcus Sweeney – Wesleyan University

Daniela Alvarez – Wesleyan University

Abigail Chiu – Dartmouth College

Chase Bartlett – St. Edward’s University

Pablo Landa – University of Illinois

Alejandro Rodriguez – University of Chicago

Maggie O’Meara – Utah State University