Skye Crocker's contributions to the track and field team fall into the "put me where you can use me the best" variety. UR's won four consecutive distance medley relay conference titles with Crocker running the 1,200 meters three times and the 800 once. His high-level indoor competition came at Boston University in February, when he had over 230 competitors in his event. During the summer, he interned at the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, NY. He spent many hours creating artificial intelligence for war games, which the military uses for strategic planning and decision-making. It reacquainted him with the game RISK, a long-time favorite.

This is the tenth of a series, now in its second year, of Q&A's on University of Rochester student-athletes' internship experiences authored by Dennis O'Donnell.

Has running always been a year-round activity for you? At the University, you run with cross country in the fall, then indoor track in the winter and outdoor track in the spring.
Yeah, I would say since as long as I've been old enough to compete in school sports—so since 7^th grade—I've been doing Cross Country and Track, and part of that includes summer training as well as Cross in the fall and Track in the Winter and Spring.
 
In addition to your success running the 800, you've competed on two of Rochester's relays – the distance medley and the 4x400. The DMR distances are 400, 800, 1200, and 1600 (although not in that order). On the 4x400, your position in the order might switch on a given week. Have you ever been switched on the DMR?
Yeah, so I've actually been part of our conference championship DMR team all four years of college. So of the four, I've ran the 1200m leg three times and then the 800m leg once.
 
How did you get involved with the relays?
For the DMR, its usually just up to the coaches to determine where they want to put all the athletes to maximize our points on championship day, and since my main event which is the 800 is on the second day of the meet and the DMR is on the first day, it usually just works out that I am a good choice for somebody to compete there. The 4x400 is a little different in that I usually only compete in that at regular meets, along with most long-sprint and mid-distance runners on the team to develop our speed and get a little extra athletic work in at the end of the meet.
 
On Valentine's Day weekend, you ran at Boston University in the 800 with more than 230 runners from all divisions. Is that a little bit disconcerting? That works out to more than 25 heats.
Yes, well, I think having all these runners there is more exciting than anything else because you end up in a heat where everybody's best time is within fractions of a second of each other and so you know it's going to make for a super competitive and fast race. BU is also on a banked track, which lends itself to faster times as well, so in combination with the competition, it's a really exciting opportunity to hit a huge PR. But I do think that is also exactly what can make it a little disconcerting. Not necessarily the competition, but like the pressure of knowing this is your chance to run a really fast time that would be difficult to hit otherwise, and knowing it's kind of your only shot at it during this season, at least with the banked track. And that's actually the experience that I had. When I was there it felt like my chance to get on the UR top 10 all time list for the 800, but I think that pressure is ultimately what caused me to have kind of a mid-race. It definitely takes some skill to run smart and relaxed when you get to the big stage, and I definitely have a lot of respect for the people who do that consistently.
 
Turning to the academic side, you interned at the Air Force Research Lab. Can you share any details of what you did at the internship?
I can't go to deep into the details since I signed a non-disclosure agreement, but basically I was working on developing artificial intelligence for war games, which are just board games that the military uses to practice strategic planning and decision-making. It was a really fantastic experience! If you've ever heard of the board game RISK, I'm low key obsessed with it, and my internship was basically just like playing RISK on steroids, so needless to say I had a great time.
 
Where were you located? Anywhere near home in Cheyenne, Wyoming?
No, but it was in Rome, NY, which is not too far from Rochester. So I was able to come up and visit some of my friends who were in Rochester over the summer once or twice, which was nice.
 
What was a typical day like? Did you have the same responsibilities each day? What kind of hours did you put in?
It was really nice, my hours were pretty flexible and as long as I did 40 per week I could come and leave whenever I wanted to, although I had to be there for the "core business hours" which are like 9 to 3. I actually ended up working 10 hours a day and taking every other Friday off which I liked. I was able to work pretty independently and on whatever I wanted, with mentor guidance of course, and I worked in a decently large room with several other interns. It was kind of just like doing work in izone all day, which was a blast.
 
How many other student interns were working there? Any of them athletes?
Yeah there were actually a ton of interns. Probably over 100. But they all come from different internship programs and work on different stuff so I'm not sure exactly. There were only actually two other interns from the program I was in and they worked in a different part of the building. I worked with one other intern on my project, and there were about seven other interns around my workspace that I interacted with daily. One of them, named Sophie, plays field hockey for RPI, although she is the only athlete I knew, though I'm sure there were many others.
 
How did you find out about the internship? What made it appealing to pursue?
I found out about the internship on Handshake. As I mentioned before, I love RISK and board games and I'm studying Artificial Intelligence, so working with war games seemed really interesting to me. My father also is in the US Air Force so I've always had a connection and appreciation for working with the Department of Defense.
 
What was the application process like?
I basically filled out a standard application with resume, cover letter, and answered some prompts, and then I got to select a couple of projects I wanted to work on and apply to. Then in February I got an offer out of nowhere, no interview or anything, which was really awesome and fortunate for me.
 
How much did your major in data science help you – first to apply and then do the work at the internship?
I think my internship was more related to software engineering than data science, but data science obviously has a lot of coding and especially AI involved as well which I think were necessary to both apply and do the work. A computer science major or any other quantitative major that knows how to code could probably have done well here though.
 
What made the University of Rochester appealing as a place to study and a place to continue your athletic career?
Although I was originally a physics and astronomy major, I chose the University of Rochester for its amazing research opportunities despite being a smaller school as well as the opportunity to compete on a strong competitive team at the D3 level. I knew I wanted to go somewhere I could participate on the cross country and track teams because its such an amazing community and important part of my life, but I also wanted to be able to focus on academics and make sure that was my first priority before athletics.
 
When the internship ended, what did you feel you learned?
The main thing I got out of my internship I think was the professional working experience. I think there is a lot that goes into life in an office setting when you are working on a team that is collaborating with other people whose work all relies on each other that is very valuable and not always easily learned in the classroom.
 
Which courses did you take this semester that were interesting?
This semester I took a break from my heavy data science and machine learning courses and just took some classes for fun besides my senior capstone. The one I like the most is Web Programming. I really like how it lets me add a lot of creativity into my work while still being able to tie it back into my major.