Justin St. Peter ’19

The best thing about studying Applied Exercise Science at UNE is an extremely well-rounded approach to the subject matter and a strong knowledge-base of the human body. Professors have a deep understanding of how the body’s basic physiology changes from things like sickness or exercise, and they really share that with students. You get to learn when the body is at its weakest or at its strongest.

Now, I’m getting my master’s in exercise science. UNE helped me get there by preparing me for the rigor of a master’s degree and also by providing a connection to other universities for post-grad.

Beyond the Classroom

After joining Outing Club my first year and doing some hiking in the Whites — I had never hiked in the White Mountains until my first-year orientation trailblazer trip — I heard about this thing called the 48 4,000-footers. It’s a challenge where you do all 48 of the 4,000-foot mountains in New Hampshire. I decided then that I was going to try to do them all in the four years before I graduated.

Eleven of the 4,000-footers are grouped together there in a 30-mile ring called the Pemigewasset Wilderness. I’ve had some truly amazing moments in that wilderness on those peaks. It’s my favorite place in the world right now. Another thing that’s cool is that the Whites are only about an hour and a half to two hours away from UNE so it’s a really doable challenge if you space it out across four years.

These kinds of endurance events are furthered by my studies in AES about learning how the body reacts in those situations — to train the body to take something that seems super hard so that it feels like it was not super hard after the proper training and adaptations.