Life as a Mountaineer – Kayla Gagnon
April 06, 2021 12:04 PM | Women's Swimming & Diving
Kayla Gagnon knew immediately West Virginia University was the place for her. The Mount Laurel, New Jersey, resident is currently a senior on the West Virginia University swimming and diving team and she has soaked up four year's worth of valuable experiences at WVU.
"Seeing the atmosphere and seeing how people love the school and hearing the 'Let's go Mountaineers!' cheer in the stadium, it just further cemented that this is the place for me," she says.
"As I learned more and more about the school, the team and everything about Morgantown, it just made more and more sense for me to come here. It's the best decision I ever made," she adds.
Competitive swimming has been a big part of her life for a long time, as long as she can remember, and the friendships she's established in the sport will last a lifetime.
"I've met so many amazing people. I've been challenged in ways that I never could have imagined and it's set me up for my future when I'm done with sports," she says.
Gagnon has also thrived out of the pool as a video editor at the Daily Athenaeum and the producer of podcast to promote her LGBTQ+ initiatives.
"I wanted to make sure I wasn't sticking to the same set of things everyday with just going to classes or just going to practices," she explains. "I'm just making sure all of the wonderful traits I've been developing as a student-athlete was also being applicable to my actual field."
Gagnon is hopeful her podcast will inspire others.
"Even though I did some things that made other people's perspectives change or help someone learn something new from the podcasts I've done," she begins, "or inspire someone else who thinks similar or better with their own projects - inspiring another LGBTQ+ person to come out to their family or to inspire someone to go into journalism or start their own podcast and share their own stories … if I've done that for someone, then I am completely satisified with what I've done here."
Gagnon was one of 40 Mountaineer student-athletes this spring to earn a spot on the Academic All-Big 12 Swimming and Diving Team, and was one of just eight from WVU with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
This week's Life as a Mountaineer was produced by Devin Kane and is presented by WVU Medicine
"Seeing the atmosphere and seeing how people love the school and hearing the 'Let's go Mountaineers!' cheer in the stadium, it just further cemented that this is the place for me," she says.
"As I learned more and more about the school, the team and everything about Morgantown, it just made more and more sense for me to come here. It's the best decision I ever made," she adds.
Competitive swimming has been a big part of her life for a long time, as long as she can remember, and the friendships she's established in the sport will last a lifetime.
"I've met so many amazing people. I've been challenged in ways that I never could have imagined and it's set me up for my future when I'm done with sports," she says.
Gagnon has also thrived out of the pool as a video editor at the Daily Athenaeum and the producer of podcast to promote her LGBTQ+ initiatives.
"I wanted to make sure I wasn't sticking to the same set of things everyday with just going to classes or just going to practices," she explains. "I'm just making sure all of the wonderful traits I've been developing as a student-athlete was also being applicable to my actual field."
Gagnon is hopeful her podcast will inspire others.
"Even though I did some things that made other people's perspectives change or help someone learn something new from the podcasts I've done," she begins, "or inspire someone else who thinks similar or better with their own projects - inspiring another LGBTQ+ person to come out to their family or to inspire someone to go into journalism or start their own podcast and share their own stories … if I've done that for someone, then I am completely satisified with what I've done here."
Gagnon was one of 40 Mountaineer student-athletes this spring to earn a spot on the Academic All-Big 12 Swimming and Diving Team, and was one of just eight from WVU with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
This week's Life as a Mountaineer was produced by Devin Kane and is presented by WVU Medicine
Players Mentioned
Fly
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