Melissa Wilson has gained three Blues rowing for the University, and this year rowed as part of the Blue squad in the historic 2015 Boat Race, racing on the Tideway on the same course as the men for the first time. As part of this event, Melissa was interviewed by Women’s Health Magazine, and in May, she and Holly Hill won gold medals at the Essen International Regatta. Melissa is hoping to progress to the World U23 Championships at the end of July, and on top of her training she has also just achieved a first class degree in English. We spoke to her about how she has found balancing her sport alongside her academic responsibilities.

1. How have you managed to balance working for your degree alongside your rowing?

My college were extremely supportive, and took the fact that I was doing a lot of sport, alongside my degree, in their stride. I was away in Germany for an extended weekend of racing the weekend before my finals, but all my supervisors responded in a really positive way (even though it meant some practice essays and last minute supervisions happening the afternoon before the exams themselves). On the other side, my coaches were kind and understanding about my need to haul big mind-maps around, leaving me to read in the gaps between racing and then letting me adjust training to be time-efficient for a week once we returned. If those around me hadn’t been so calm, I might have found the balance more difficult to justify to myself!

2. What lessons have you learned along the way?

Having not been sporty at school, I’d found adjusting to university-level sport in my second year quite a big step to handle alongside my Part I exams. During exam term, which came after my first Boat Race, I completely stopped training and spent weeks on end curled up in the library trying to play catch-up with everyone else. I remember sitting down with my coach at the end of that year, and saying that I thought it best to stop rowing that summer, so that I could spend my final year reading books in coffee shops! He gave me the best advice I’ve received whilst here: that often we think we’ll be safest if we channel all our energies into one thing, when in fact that often leaves us with too much pressure or expectation in one area. If I’d given up the rowing, any criticism from a weekly essay, or a poor mark in a final exam paper would have really stung and probably thrown me. As it was, during the times when things weren’t quite clicking academically, I was able to rely on the fact that my splits were improving, or my crew was making great improvements on the water, or was bonding more closely together. At the points where rowing was particularly hard, or progress had slowed, I had a subject that I loved to pull me out of a hole.

3. What advice would you give to any students wishing to participate in sport during their time at the University?

Do it, do it, do it! Unless you end up going into professional sport, this is likely to be the last time that you can dedicate so much time to something that makes you feel so physically good – it’s difficult to find a job that also allows you to fit 3-7 hours of training each day (or even a single hour). That’s what you can do here – any sport under the sun, with like-minded people, for as much or as little time as you want, whilst also pushing yourself academically. I really can’t recommend it enough.

4. What has been your sporting highlight during your time at the University?

I was blown away by the experience of the Boat Race this year. Having raced in two previous Blue Boats, I had always had some expectation that the 2015 race (which moved to the same course as the men, on the same day, with the same media coverage) would be different. However, standing in the boathouse before the doors opened and we walked out to race Oxford was a completely unique experience and  - where I would normally have some quite strong pre-race nerves - this time I was just enormously excited. At that moment I felt that I would do another three years of training, with all the 5am alarms and any number of erg tests, just to be able to stand where I was and do it again. It would have been a very different experience to win, but being in that first Tideway Women’s Boat Race will remain a highlight for the rest of my life.

5. What are your future plans both in the sporting world and life beyond University?

I’m currently training at the GB rowing centre near Reading, ahead of the U23 World Championships in Plovdiv later this month. As long as the racing goes well, I’ll hopefully be moving down to the area next September to train with the senior squad – hanging on to their coat-tails in the run-up to Rio! This year, I believed that the best thing to do for both my sport and my work was just to put all I could into both processes through till the exams and racing had ended this summer, and then see where I was. I’m still sticking to the same policy, so will just take things as best I can from the end of July!