Swimming has taken Nina Kucheran all over the world.

Now, for her final year of NCAA eligibility, her sport as well as the pursuit of academic excellence will see the graduate of Collège Notre-Dame move from one coast line of the United States clear across the country to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

With her undergraduate degree in Exercise Science already safely secured from Florida State University, the team captain of the Seminoles will make her way to the University of California Berkeley, located just across the bay from the city of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.

In pursuing a Masters in Education (with specialization in Learning Sciences and Human Development), Kucheran will be attending an institution that is far more well-known for the elite standards of their academic programs than necessarily for the accomplishments of their women's swim team - and this despite the fact that coach Teri McKeever and company have garnered the NCAA national championship in women's swimming four times in the past dozen years.

That just speaks to the academic reputation of Cal Berkeley - so yes, this school has everything Kucheran was looking for.

"A big thing for me was that academically, I wanted to get something out of it - but also go somewhere where I knew the swim team would be a challenge for me, with people there to push me," suggested Kucheran recently.

"As a swimmer, you're always growing, always changing and you want to put yourself in an environment that is going to challenge you."

It certainly wasn't as though success never came calling during her time at FSU.

While the pandemic clearly caused some unexpected detours in the training regimen that was envisioned when she first signed on with the Seminoles (Kucheran spent basically the entire period from April of 2020 through until the fall of 2021 either in Sudbury or Toronto), a bevy of school records and conference medals speak to the progress that she made while in Florida.

A very strong performance at the Olympic Trials was followed by a final season in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) which was somewhat up and day, with personal best times mixed in with a disappointing disqualication in her signature event and a good but not great meet at the NCAA Championships.

"I was kind of just off," said Kucheran of her final meet at FSU. "It wasn't disastrous - but at a meet like that, you can have an okay swim in the morning, but an okay swim doesn't get you back at night."

"If I had been at my best, I would have finalled."

By the time that competition rolled around, Kucheran had not only long-since decided to return for a fifth year - "as soon as I decided to take the redshirt year in 2021, I knew that I was going back for one more" - but had also pretty much convinced herself that the west coast and Cal Berkeley specifically was the place to be.

"They have that culture of swimming excellence," explained Kucheran, a long-time member of the Sudbury Laurentian Swim Club. "If I decided to keep going to 2024 (Summer Olympics), the school had to have a really good pro team that would allow me to do that; so not just a really good collegiate team but also athletes who are training as pros."

While a degree from Cal Berkeley will only enhance her resume as she looks to pursue a possible application to Medical School down the road, Kucheran was adament that the institution that was established in 1868 thankfully checks off pretty much every single box imagineable for her.

"They have a history of Olympic and NCAA excellence and that immediately drew me," she said. "The idea of other people shooting for the same thing or bigger things than I am was appealing - and also a coach that I will be able to work with and that I feel I connect with."

While there was some turnover in the coaching ranks at FSU, Kucheran could not thank her current mentors enough, coach Steve Wood and others, for their help and guidance as she navigated her way through the NCAA transfer portal after having a heart to heart with them back in the fall.

"I love Florida; I'm really sad to leave it," she said. "I love the people and the weather, I love training outside, but at the end of the day, I was going to go where I could see myself flourishing the most in swimming."

"I feel that there is still some untapped potential and I am hoping that a change of scenery will help me un-tap."

And if all of that adds to the worldwide travel blog of Nina Kucheran, well, there's nothing wrong with that either.