Freedom in Flexibility

When it came time to help Micaela consider where to attend college, UNCG sprang to mind. Micaela considered the University of Utah, but her scholarship offer there didn’t allow for part-time attendance. That meant she would have had to commute an hour each way for in-person courses while balancing her work as an alpine race coach and her interest in traveling.

“I wanted a bit more freedom and wanted to focus on coaching and skiing and studying,” Micaela says. “Taking classes online gave me a lot of flexibility and really allowed me to be able to enjoy life while getting an education.”

She completes four classes each semester and takes advantage of summer and winter terms to stay on pace for her degree. When she enrolled in 2021, she spent her first six months in Prague, where she’d traveled to visit her grandmother. The two went to Spain next because “my grandmother wanted to see Barcelona, and I wanted to show it to her,” says Micaela, who loves to explore new places. She spent a Christmas season in France, has been to Croatia for weeks at a time, and has shown family members around California and Costa Rica.

During the winter, she skis daily from 9 a.m. to at least 1 p.m., and sometimes to 4 p.m. She also travels to races with the athletes she coaches, who range in age from 11 to 15. “At the Bryan School, I’m able to do all this without pausing my degree and without missing anything,” she says.