{"id":55458,"date":"2012-02-24T08:13:19","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T13:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=55458"},"modified":"2012-02-28T09:16:32","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T14:16:32","slug":"recent-alum%e2%80%99s-success-in-archery-helped-identify-her-target-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/02\/recent-alum%e2%80%99s-success-in-archery-helped-identify-her-target-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Alum\u2019s Success in Archery Helped Identify Her Target Career"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Liz<\/a>
Liz Didan shooting a bow and arrow. (Sheila Foran\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As an undergraduate at UConn, Elizabeth Didan \u201911 (CLAS) spent many solitary hours researching salamanders, and in her spare time became an elite competitor in a sport that rewards intense single-mindedness. But much as she enjoyed these individual pursuits, they helped her realize that for her career, she wanted to work with people.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old graduate of the Honors Program is now pursuing a bachelor\u2019s in nursing out of state, and planning to obtain a graduate degree.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really had a great college experience,\u201d says the New England Scholar and CLAS Dean\u2019s Award winner, an archer who represented UConn and the U.S. at the Collegiate World Games.<\/p>\n

Didan went to China with America\u2019s World Archery Team the summer before graduation, and posted her personal best score.<\/p>\n

Originally introduced to bows and arrows at camp while in middle school, Didan\u2019s archery career began as a lark during her first semester at UConn. Her boyfriend urged her to join him on UConn\u2019s club-level Archery Team, which was then beginning its second year of competition.<\/p>\n

\"Liz<\/a>
Liz Didan prepares her recurve bow for a practice session. (Sheila Foran\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shooting recurve \u2013 meaning she uses a traditional-looking bow \u2013 Didan received the Best New Archer Award at a club sports national competition, and that motivated her to practice even more.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter winning the award, I decided there\u2019s a lot I love about archery, and I wanted to be good at it,\u201d Didan says. \u201cYou\u2019re part of a team but it\u2019s more of an individual sport, requiring a lot of focus and mental power.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Didan, an ecology and evolutionary biology major, applied to UConn\u2019s Honors Program. She says the program provided her with support and opportunities to conduct research \u2013 experience she needed as a science major.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went around to different professors asking to work with them,\u201d Didan says. Mark Urban, an assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biology, offered her a choice of projects to work on.<\/p>\n

For 2\u00bd years, Didan researched aggression in larval salamanders born in ponds \u2013 actually giant shallow puddles \u2013 that often dry up and disappear within six weeks of the amphibians\u2019 birth. Supported by UConn\u2019s Summer Undergraduate Research Fund, Didan says she investigated, \u201chow some salamanders adapt, living long enough in such a crazy competitive environment to metamorphose into land creatures. I spent a lot of days out in the field doing research, or in an office doing statistics by myself; it can get lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Didan began her last year at UConn, thinking about her future. \u201cThat\u2019s what seniors do,\u201d she says. \u201cMy research experience was absolutely invaluable, because I realized that research can get slow, and I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m patient enough for that kind of life. I fell upon nursing because there are people 24\/7. Nursing offers so much to do, and is more appropriate for my personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Didan attributes her self-knowledge to her success in the field. \u201cIn archery you really have to be conscious of yourself. I like that archery requires you to ignore things happening around you, which is odd for sports, because usually you have to be aware of what others are doing. Some archers tend to focus on comparing their scores to others, but I think it\u2019s better to focus on your own goals. Doing my personal best is more important than winning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liz Didan \u201911 (CLAS) learned from the solitary pursuits of archery and undergraduate research that she wanted a more people-oriented career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":53053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-55458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 20:37:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55458"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55639,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55458\/revisions\/55639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/53053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55458"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=55458"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=55458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}