Written by Maya Cumming & Megan Sou
In honour of International Women’s Day, our Intramurals Marketing team had the chance to sit down with UBC’s very own inspiration, Emily Millard, a decorated figure skater and an accomplished engineer as well as the only woman in UBC history to accomplish an Ultra Ironperson at the annual Storm the Wall event. She is currently on an engineering internship with Tesla’s Motor Team in Palo Alto, California but came back for the weekend to organize and skate in a UBC Figure Skating ice show on Grouse Mountain. An inspiration to all, we take a deeper dive into her background and incredible story of challenges, perseverance, and impressive accomplishments.
Millard’s love for skating began at the age of four when she was given a pair of skates for Christmas by her grandparents and skated for the first time on Green Lake at Whistler. From there she started taking lessons at the rec-centre then moving to competitive figure skating. Her love for the sport only grew and her talent and skill took her far, winning a Bronze medal in 2019 in novice ladies, and then again in 2020 winning a silver medal in junior ladies at the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships. Millard has had the honour of representing Canada internationally and being a member of the Skate Canada Nex Gen team, as well as being a 7-time Skate Canada Challenge competitor and 6-time provincial medalist, competed in the BC Winter and Summer games, and the Canada Winter Games.
Not only is she a decorated athlete, Millard is also a dedicated student who excelled analytical subjects and creative problem solving, ultimately leading her to only apply to UBC engineering. She further explained her desire of wanting to stay local to Vancouver so she could continue training and competing in skating and still attend a highly rated engineering school with a generalist first year program full-time close to home.
Soon enough, she was faced with a huge challenge —balancing her love for skating with the engineering program. Millard had a busy schedule very early on: wake up at 6am to commute to campus from North Vancouver, attend classes for engineering from 8am-1pm, go to skating practice in Burnaby from 2-7pm, then head back home to complete her assignments. “It was pretty tough, but I expected it,” she explains. Nonetheless, she didn’t let her packed schedule overwhelm her and instead made sure she could seize every opportunity available to become the better version of herself. This includes being more involved on campus by joining the Formula UBC Racing FSAE Automotive Design Team, serving as the Club Ambassador for the UBC Figure Skating Club and volunteering with the EUS. Millard’s favourite thing about all this is being able to gain different experiences as she interacts with other athletes and engineers who share the same passions as her, whether that’s competing at the Michigan International Speedway with the Formula UBC Racing team or to traveling to England last summer where she was selected for Red Bull Racing’s International Women in Engineering Day event.
Despite her various time commitments, Millard has never been discouraged or felt defeated by the amount of activities on her plate. In fact, she sees them as opportunities to challenge herself further. There were times when she would question herself whether she is working hard enough or wanting to do more even though, as she had to forgo some extracurricular and social opportunities. When she had been injured, Millard made sure to keep her head up and maintain a positive attitude throughout her journey. “[It’s all about taking] a step back into perspective and remind yourself just to try your best,” she smiles as she reminisces about her healing process. “Don’t compare [yourself] to others and become proud of yourself and your accomplishments.” It’s important to her that she does not give up and continues to work through challenges regardless of the obstacles blocking her way. This mentality allowed her to seize every moment she could and pushed her to be stronger and more resilient. Millard also emphasized on focusing on the now, looking at how you can adapt, what training can you do, and steps within your limitations to keep moving forward, instead of living in the past and reminiscing of who you were and where you were before the injury. To take it one day at a time forward, opposed to trying to go back to where you once were. She takes the opportunity to answer if she had ever felt hesitation or trepidation about being a woman in a male dominated field, simply answering, “I never looked at it as a disadvantage … you can see it as a more powerful thing, just because there are less women doesn’t mean you’re lesser than, and if anything it makes you stand out.” Touching on her independence gained from years of figure skating training she excelled in her field and used her perseverance and competitive spirit to succeed.
As it was meant to be, Millard soon found her place at UBC, after initially planning to go into electrical or computer engineering, she found her interests most closely aligned with manufacturing engineering, in which she had a foundation of skills in many areas. She was able to apply skills she honed through her skating journey and use them to her advantage in the engineering program. Long days, tight deadlines, and stressful situations were no stranger to Millard as she handled them with grace under pressure. She attributes her ability to stay calm and thrive in competitive environments to her skating career. These transfer into the full-time work and real-life environments Millard has faced along her journey with the UBC FSAE racing team and Tesla.
Her first time participating at Storm the Wall was during Millard’s first year at UBC, where she boldly competed as an Iron Person, competing all 5 events herself without any prior experience with triathlons or Storm itself. This daring choice came about because she couldn’t convince enough of her friends to fill the spots to make a team. Unphased, Millard decided to compete herself, seeing it as an opportunity to challenge herself. With her physical background of strength and conditioning training from figure skating, recreational hobby for cycling and having competed nationally in track & field for heptathlon, Millard confessed the only additional training she completed leading up to Storm was getting on her shoes coming out of the pool! Nevertheless, she wowed her first year and came back for her second year pushing herself even further, competing in Ultra Iron woman!
When asked how she balances everything and finds the time to do everything. She replied, “I don’t, I wish there were more hours in the day.” She preaches that her motto is always to keep pushing and challenging herself to be the best version she can be. She expects and prepares for the challenges that come with balancing skating with schoolwork and career opportunities. But acknowledges the fact that if something is that important to you, such as skating, you will make time and find time to do what you’re passionate about and what you love to do. She was also fortunate to have support from her family when competing at a high level in figure skating and is incredibly grateful for her parents encouraging her to always set high goals. Millard mentioned that she takes advantage of every free moment she has and makes the most of it, whether it’s working on the commute or waiting for a bus or utilizing a cancelled class to catch up on coursework. In her very limited free time, she mentions some of her hobbies include arts and crafts, specifically watercolours enjoying how portable they are. Sewing and costume designing after designing and creating her own dresses for skating programs Millard is also an avid baker and enjoys cooking with an added challenge of making things gluten free for her father who is celiac.
Although she will not be there this year for Storm the Wall, her spirit and courage remain an inspiration for women. When we asked about how to navigate the difficulties of juggling between sports and academics, she advises to “take advantage of resources and take [opportunities] to figure out what you want to do.” To Millard, this balance is driven by passion. “If it’s important enough to you, you can and will make time for it.” “Accept that it’s not going to be comfortable or easy, but if it is something that I want to do, I am willing to work hard to make it happen.”