Tonight marks the start of the women’s ACC swimming championships in Chapel Hill. And for five team members, it will mark the beginning of what could be their last meets if they don’t qualify for NCAA Championships.

Technician sat down with each of the team’s five seniors, and they reflected on their careers and talked about what they plan to do after leaving N.C. State.

Lindsay Barwegen

Lindsay Barwegen, who hails from Highland Village, Texas, is so accustomed to early-morning swimming practices that they’re about as natural as breathing for her.

“It’s not fun getting up every morning, but it’s a schedule I’ve been doing for the last 18 years of my life. So in a week and a half, it will be a rude awakening,” Barwegen said. “I’m going to have all this free time. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

But with top-eight finishes in each of her ACC championship events the past two seasons, Barwegen still has some business left before she bids farewell to her career.

“I’d really like to do that again this year,” Barwegen said of those recent ACC championship finishes.

Following up two years in which she nearly qualified for NCAA championships, she added she is also hoping to finish well enough to make nationals this season.

As for her job after school, the textile and apparel management major who is graduating in May isn’t quite sure what it will be. But she’s got some leads.

“I have no idea,” Barwegen said. “I have different job interviews lined up.”

Amy Baskwell

Amy Baskwell, who is from Charlotte, said as she thinks back on what she’s accomplished in her career. It’s been defined more by what’s happened outside of the pool than what’s happened in it.

“In the long run, I’m now able to look at the big picture because I’m almost done. So it’s easy to look back and see that it’s not just about the swimming,” Baskwell said. “But it’s about who you become along the way.”

Baskwell is majoring in communication with a concentration in public relations, and she will graduate in May. Upon graduating, she would like to work in sports public relations for either a professional team or a public relations firm.

After spending her first year and a half in First Year College trying to figure out what she wanted to do at the end of college, she decided to go into public relations.

“I don’t want to have a job where I’m behind a desk every day, same thing every day. So I just talked to different people and found out that with public relations you get to talk to a lot of people, and you get to do something different every day,” Baskwell said. “And you can travel, and it seems pretty interesting to me.”

Melissa Jamerino

Melissa Jamerino, from Grosse Pointe, Mich., said she’s enjoyed getting to know her teammates through the good and the bad during her four years.

“The most memorable things are all the little things, swimming with each other every day. You know them on a different level, as if you know like a family member,” Jamerino said. “Just getting to know everybody, even on their bad days and just knowing how they are. So I think just being close, having the closeness.”

Jamerino will graduate in May with a degree in biological sciences. She was recently accepted to the University of North Carolina’s three-year physical therapy program.

She said she would like to do either amputee prosthetics or pediatrics, but that she won’t have to make a decision for a while.

After volunteering some with physical therapy, she said she knew it’s what she wanted to do.

“[I] just knew it was perfect for me. And plus, you get the athletic part too,” Jamerino said. “You get to help people improve the quality of life, so I think that’s really important.”

Laura Neely

Laura Neely, who is from Mechanicsville, Va., said she has mixed feelings about the end of her career.

“It’s exciting. I’ve swum for 16 years now, so [I’m] kind of ready for it to be over,” Neely said. “But at the same time, it’s kind of sad.”

But she said some of her best memories in college have come during ACC championships weeks in years past.

Neely is a biological sciences major, and she will graduate in May. When she leaves State after completing work for her degree in three years, she plans to return to her home state to attend physical therapy school at Virginia Tech.

With some of her own injury struggles in college, she said physical therapy seemed natural for her.

“I used to want to be a doctor, but then I decided I didn’t want to go to that much school. But still kind of liked anatomy and being able to help other people get better,” Neely said. “And just being hurt all the time myself, being in and out of physical therapy, kind of started to like it.”

Kerry Whitson

It’s hard for Kerry Whitson, who is from Centerville, Ohio, to forget her third-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle at ACC championships in 2006. After all, the medal honoring her as an All-ACC performer is on prominent display in her room.

“When I come into my room, I see it every day. And it just reminds of me of the hard work that I did last year. It definitely paid off,” Whitson said. “So I’m definitely hoping for that hard work that I’m doing this year to pay off as well, maybe finish second [or] first. Third would be good again, but I’m always trying to go for better.”

But there’s something else the biological science major hasn’t forgotten about ACC championships — the masseuse who worked with the athletes at the event.

Talking with the masseuse helped spark an interest in Whitson, who had wanted to be a physical therapist. Now she wants to get her massage therapy license and work in sports rehab after she graduates in December.

“I can relate to athletes and the reasons why they’re sore and stuff like that,” Whitson said. “I want to work with people that I’m familiar with.”