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. 
  
In this Scholar-Athlete Spotlight, we are featuring Florida Tech women's swimmer Shaelyn Rutta, a senior who is majoring in aviation management with flight. The Oconomowoc, Wisconsin native was a part of relay victories for the Panthers during the 2021-22 season against Florida Southern (100 Fly), Rollins (400 Free), Tampa (200 Free) and Keiser (400 Free). During her Florida Tech career, she has also recorded two individual victories in the 50 Free.

Shaelyn has been named to the Sunshine State Conference and Florida Tech Athletic Director's Honor Roll in each of her three years at Tech, doing so with a 4.0 GPA in 2020.

Given her unique major that not only requires plenty of time in the classroom but plenty of time in a plane as well, we sat down with Shaelyn to ask her what drew her to the skies, her aviation education at Tech, what she wants to do next and her outlook on the upcoming 2022-23 season.
 
What's your major at Florida Tech and why did you choose this? Is it something that you've always wanted to do? 
I'm in aviation management with flight and I chose it because as a kid, I've always really enjoyed operating vehicles, like snowmobiles, cars, all of that. And my hometown is only an hour away from the greatest aviation festival in the United States known as EAA AirVenture Oshkosh and when I went to that when I was 16, that was kind of just like the switch for me that I wanted to become a pilot.
 
Growing up just outside Milwaukee, what was it about Florida Tech that drew you here? 
I love Wisconsin, don't get me wrong, but for my college years, I kind of wanted to experience something a little different. So, Wisconsin and Florida have a very different setting, and being next to the beach, just seems like a really nice place to be, so I'm really glad that I'm here.
  
How do you plan to use your degree after graduation?  
So, after I graduate, I'm going to become a certified flight instructor and I'll do that until I reach my 1000 hours and use my degree towards going to the regional airlines. After I'm there for a couple of years, I will go into the majors which would be like Southwest or United.
 
What are some of the exciting projects that you've been able to work on in classes here? 
So, two of my favorite projects were a speech that I did on the Boeing 737 Max scandals, if you've heard of those, they're all over Netflix, and they're really tragic things that have happened. And then there's another one in airport planning and design that I did. Our professor gave us a project based off of the Denver International Airport and we had to create a brand-new runway. So, there's a lot to do with planning the runway grade, the runway length, new taxiways, and I really found how much work it takes to create an airport.
 
Now you have a private license, have you had the chance to fly around the area here? I'm sure with the Indian River and the Atlantic Ocean nearby, that's got to be quite a view if you've had the chance to do that!
Oh, yeah, it's very beautiful. (While I was) doing my multi, I got to fly down to the Keys and that was my favorite flight that I've done here. It's about a three-hour flight. We did have lunch down there and came all the way back up and it was all for school! So, I really loved that!

How do you keep everything balanced once the season starts?
Time management, especially for my major and being an athlete is one of the hardest, but most important things to have. I spend 90% of my time either in classes, at practice, flying or at work. So having a planner and getting things done ahead of time and getting things scheduled is just very, very essential. So being a flight student and an athlete, it's definitely possible, but it's difficult, but I still love it. 
 
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 would say the most I've learned was time management like we talked about and then also discipline. Being in the pool, you have only one race, one shot, one opportunity and you want to put everything you have into that singular race. So I've started putting that into my school and everyday life; in all my projects, all my assignments, I put all my effort into it. I try not to slack off or anything.
 
What advice would you give to an athlete coming to Florida Tech that has an interest in aviation?
I would tell them that it's difficult, but it's definitely doable. And there is a small portion of us that are flight students and athletes, so definitely get to know those people and create a little community because it's really enjoyable. Get groups, do study groups and you should get everything done on time.
 
The 2022-23 season starts next week, how do you feel about the team and what are you looking forward to the most?
I think we're gonna be a force to be reckoned with at conference this year! We have a lot of newcomers that have a lot of potential, but we have some returners that are going to be really fast. So, I think we'll definitely have a national presence this year!