“You are the best in the room.” 

It’s what her coach said to her when she was having a bad game. It’s what she says to herself before every game now. 

Volleyball player Cadence McDonald has carried those words with her through her high school volleyball career.  After four years of playing on the varsity volleyball team at Hebron, she plans on carrying the words with her to the Colorado School of Mines, where she will major in engineering. 

“For a lot of competitive volleyball programs, they don’t allow you to have hard majors because [the sport] is such a time commitment,” Cadence said. “I want to be an engineer, so I had to find a program that would allow me to do [both].”

Cadence dreams of working in motorsport engineering — a passion fueled by Mines with their Formula SAE program: a student competition that challenges students to design, build and race small formula-style cars. While this is just a portion of her academic career, Cadence said her advisors and coaches at Mines have been extremely helpful in balancing both her sport and academics. 

“I had a lot of questions for them, and they were super open with me,” Cadence said. “They kept telling me ‘This is not easy.’ It was nice for them to tell me that because I know they are being real and honest with me.”

After experiencing the authenticity of the coaches and players, Cadence knew Mines was home to her, as opposed to the other schools she was considering: Rice University and Kansas State University.  

“I was talking to all the players [at Mines] and hearing about their experiences,” Cadence said.  “It seemed like it was the perfect [situation] for them, and I knew at that moment that I wanted to go there.”