Scholar Stories: Hastie Finds Career Path in Unlikely Place
11/1/2023 4:18:00 PM | Women's Cross Country
By Kiera Burns
Continuing the series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories, presented by Absopure.
University of Michigan junior Samantha Hastie never planned on running in college. However, after a shift in coaching during high school she quickly learned that not only could she go to one of the top academic universities but she also could compete on both the cross country and track and field teams while pursuing a major in data science and a minor in public policy.
Hastie ran through elementary school and joined the cross country and track teams in middle school, but running was never anything serious for her. When it came time for high school, she joined the team with her sister who was two years older and a member of the squad.
"My sister had a lot of fun with the team and a lot of success in it, so I figured why not," said Hastie. "Our team wasn't anything outstanding, but it was a lot of fun to run with my sister."
In her junior season, Hastie's mindset around running and her future in the sport changed when the team hired a new coach.
"Our new coach was really everything we could ask for," said Hastie. "He was super enthusiastic and he really loved being there, so that is when I definitely started to take it more seriously and in my junior year I made it to the state meet for the first time."
Things really took off from there. Hastie's ran both cross country and track in her senior season and her coach started seeing the potential of a collegiate career. As an Ann Arbor native, Michigan had always been on her radar as a school she would like to attend for its academics, but following some further conversations with her coach and hard work at practice she realized that she was capable of attending school and running collegiately for the Wolverines.
"I didn't really know I was good enough to run in college, but my high school coach asked if that was something I'd be interested in and it was," stated Hastie.
Hastie entered her freshman year unsure of what she wanted to study and took a variety of classes while acclimating to her new life as both a student and a collegiate athlete. During her first semester sophomore year, she enrolled in an entry level electrical engineering and computer science class that she was dreading taking. She did not know that this class would change her life and her career path.
"I would sit down and think about what homework I should do," explained Hastie when talking about how she came to her choice of a major. "The coding was the homework that I wanted to work on and I figured that was a good starting place."
After declaring her major in data science shortly after the class ended, Hastie went to work quickly on exploring career options and knew that she didn't want to only sit behind a desk and do coding so she decided to tack on a minor in public policy within the Ford School hoping to apply her technical coding skills to larger community problems.
This past summer, Hastie did an internship at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) where she was able to explore many different areas within the research center but mainly focused on electric vehicles and AI in the automotive industry. She was also able to explore a variety of perspectives while working within the electric vehicle group and could see how her technical side of coding would come into play within the industry.
"I had more focus on AI and machine learning and those applications in the automotive space," said Hastie. "I was getting to look at thinks like policies and economic projects that the center was doing for different groups relating to those things and I was also getting to take a look at more technical numbers. With that I was able to use my coding background."
"I think that whether or not I want to go into the automotive space for my future career, it was a unique opportunity to kind of see what research looks like in the real world," stated Hastie. "I think that being involved in some type of research is I want to do in the future."
As Hastie enters her junior season, she has become a leader on her team and is helping the younger student-athletes find their passions and career paths just as she did not too long ago. She has realized that there is an overlap between her studies and her sport and that both take continuous dedication and she wants to help the younger athletes adjust to the collegiate atmosphere.
"I tell them that studying for your exam a little bit every day will have such a huge improvement on your understanding of the material," said Hastie. "You can do a lot of little things to make sure you're keeping up in your classes and performing the best. I think that kind of dedication to those little things in my life is very similar to cross country. You want to be practicing every day, recovering every day, sleeping every day so I kind of think the way I approach them is similar."
Hastie has continued to hone her skills not only in the classroom but also running. She has found her favorite event in the 800-meter run and looks forward to completing the cross country season strong before shifting her focus to the indoor and outdoor track seasons.Â
Hastie and her team are currently preparing for the NCAA Great Lakes Regional after a third place finish at the Big Ten Championships.
Players Mentioned
