Sasha Spalding has a Drive for Success in Business and Track

Unlike her passion for business, Sasha Spalding's athletic ability didn't come from her family. But the drive to work hard and succeed was certainly instilled in her by her hard-working Caribbean-born parents. A native of New York who relocated to Florida, Spalding chose Carnegie Mellon University as her number one school because of the opportunity to compete in track and receive a renowned education.

Spalding is a sophomore on the track and field team and a business major with a concentration in finance. Her interest in business stems from her father and brother, who are both accountants. As a child, Spalding was constantly tuned in to CNN and other business channels.

The sophomore is ahead of the game in terms of internships, as she completed a rotational program in the human resources department of PNC this past summer in Pittsburgh. Spalding has received offers to return to PNC or intern at Boeing this year.

"Because I'm so young, I'm just testing the waters and trying to get as many internships as I can to see what I really like," Spalding said. "I'm trying to decide if I want to stay with a company I know or see another side of business."

Spalding is also part of a group called Financial Frontline Society through the Tepper School of Business. Within the organization, Spalding serves as an analyst.

"Financial Frontline Society is a business organization on campus that prepares you for real world experience by doing case studies," Spalding said. "I analyze reports on big companies and present them to the group."

Spalding's drive doesn't stop at wanting to succeed in the business world; she's also a highly competitive runner, setting two school records as a freshman – the indoor 200-meter dash and the outdoor 400-meter relay.

Athletics wasn't in her parents' mindset, so it took awhile for them to accept that when she wasn't coming home to do schoolwork,  she was going to practice for cross country, basketball and track and field.

"Once my parents saw I worked hard, they were okay and knew I was going to be the best I could be at it," Spalding said.

Despite the early success, Spalding says she could have trained more effectively last year had she participated in the first semester preseason. She elected to spend her first few months at Carnegie Mellon getting acclimated to her new school environment.

"Once I felt my grades were good enough I stepped up my training," Spalding said. "It was actually rough at the beginning because I was out of shape but things got progressively better. I know I could have done better had I trained in the preseason so I'm looking forward to this season."

To add to things, Spalding decided to branch out from sprinting and pick up the heptathlon, a series of seven events including the 200-meter and 800-meter runs, 100-meter hurdles, shot put, javelin, high jump and long jump. In the heptathlon, athletes receive points depending on their final distances and times in the various events.

"I'm competitive but for myself," Spalding said. "I'm not concerned as much with coming in first place or if I beat another girl. If my time isn't good, I'm not going to be happy. I feel the heptathlon is more individualized so I told coach I wanted to try it.

"Hopefully training longer and harder will give me the chance to be better than I was last year," Spalding added. "Our team is larger this year, which allows us to push each other more and have more diversity among the relays."