Commitment to academic and athletic excellence: Ashley Harlock
August 1, 2024 - Tiffany Werner
Ashley Harlock graduated from LBC in Spring 2024 with two bachelor of science degrees, one in neuroscience and the other in human biology, and as a member of the Honors College. Throughout her college career, Harlock was on MSU’s field hockey team, serving as a team captain. She exemplifies the commitment required for both athletics and academics in being not just a successful student athlete, but an exceptional one.
Throughout college, Harlock spent considerable time in research. As a first-year student, she was awarded a professorial research assistantship from the Honors College for the top 1% of freshmen applying to MSU, in which she assisted in Dr. Kendall Mahn’s laboratory in the College of Natural Science. As a second-year, she was a research assistant for Professor Susan Ravizza in the College of Social Science and most recently assisted Professor A.J. Robinson in the College of Natural Science.
In her time at MSU, Ashley held four leadership positions at MSU and in local communities, including team captain for MSU’s Division I Field Hockey team, president of MSU’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee, learning assistant for MSU’s Introduction to Neuroscience course, and a coach for the Pinnacle Field Hockey Club in Pinckney, Michigan.
As a full-time student with many responsibilities outside of the classroom, managing her time between athletics and academics took some trial and error. Harlock found that keeping a detailed planner and leaning on the people around her was helpful. She thinks it would have been impossible to be a successful student athlete without a strong support system. Harlock learned early that forming friends in her classes and developing relationships with her professors were crucial to staying on track. Taking advantage of tutors and academic advisors was also necessary for keeping up with her responsibilities. In addition to staying organized, Harlok discovered the power of taking time for herself each day to do something she enjoys, such as playing the guitar, singing, or baking.
Harlock thanks her mentors across different areas of her undergraduate career, both athletic and academic, for her success as a busy undergraduate student. She thanks her research advisors Dr. AJ Robison, Dr. Andrew Eagle, and Dr. Susan Ravizza, her field hockey coaches, Helen Knull, Tamara Durante, Erin Shanahan, and Matt Michie, her academic advisor, Jeremy Flynn, and her Director of Student Athlete Development, Angela Montie. She also notes several discussions with LBC’s Dean, Dr. Kendra Cheruvelil were particularly helpful in keeping her committed. Harlock also thanks her family for their unconditional love and support, as they were crucial to getting her where she is today.
LBC was essential to the success Harlock achieved during her time at MSU. “Having a close-knit community of peers, professors, and mentors who are as passionate as I am about science truly helped me to grow as a student,” says Harlock, “It was great to have friends in my classes as well as teachers who were always more than willing to help me better understand material.”
Out of her many memorable experiences at MSU, her favorite was her trip to South Africa with her field hockey team after graduation. She enjoyed the immersive experience in a new country and the opportunity to witness a different culture, while playing the sport she loves with people she loves. During her time at LBC, she found her passion and purpose in neuroscience and research, and through various highs and lows of the semester, found her physical and mental strength to be greater than she knew. As a student-athlete who sustained some concussion injuries throughout her career, Harlock found her interest in the brain through an overlap of her two passions.
In August, Harlock will be moving to New York City to start a PhD program in neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “My first year will involve classes and laboratory rotations so that I can choose the best fit for me and my thesis research,” says Harlock. “I plan to research neurodegenerative disease, focusing on Alzheimer’s Disease, Traumatic Brain Injury, and/or CTE using both a mouse model and human tissue.”
Harlock is most proud of two accomplishments from her undergraduate career: being voted captain of her field hockey team and being elected president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. “While my individual academic and athletic achievements made me proud, what I most longed for was having a positive impact on others,” says Harlock. “Becoming a field hockey captain and the president of SAAC were proof that the hard work I put in to better myself and those around me had paid off, and both roles provided me a platform to continue to do so at an even higher level.”
In order to balance the workload of a full time student with the time commitment of being a team leader, Harlock committed herself to using the resources around her and the people around her to support her challenging schedule. Harlock emphasizes the importance of commitment when being a student-athlete at the collegiate level, noting it is much easier to manage a hectic schedule when you’re passionate about everything you do.
Image courtesy of Ashley Harlock.