Zoe explained that the discipline and attention to detail that she has learned through cheer “has translated well into my studies.” One detail, for example, is cheer coaches who emphasize the importance of doing something over and over again, “not just until you get it right, but when you can’t get it wrong,” she said. Zoe finds this mind-set useful whenever “I am trying to master any skill or study for a difficult exam.” She offers the National Cheerleaders Association slogan that encapsulates this thinking: “The work is worth it.”

For Sarah, the intersection of life and engineering came during her junior year of high school when she realized “engineers have truly created everything around us.” In the cheerleading world specifically, she wonders about the mat designs and how they help cheerleaders increase their tumbling skills. “When learning a brand-new skill, you typically begin on the tumble track—a long trampoline-like surface which propels you quite high—and land in a foam pit or soft mat, which prevents injuries due to an elongated time of the force of landing,” she explained. As cheerleaders begin to get the feeling of a skill and perform it consistently, they move onto the next surface, which decreases in bounciness and takes away the soft landing.