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Michigan fifth-year senior linebacker Noah Furbush was awarded the National Football Foundation Coach Bo Schembechler - University of Michigan Scholarship, worth $10,000.
Furbush will graduate this spring before embarking on a one-year graduate degree in aerospace engineering. He'll be focusing on the space engineering side.
“No more airplanes, just rockets and spacecraft,” Furbush said.
The scholarship will allow him to explore a number of different things related to his degree.
“There are so many cool things happening right now in the aerospace industry in general, but especially in space,” Furbush said. “You have billionaires sending their own sports cars into space, so many cool things. In New Zealand, they’re 3D printing rockets for a couple million [dollars]. It’s incredible the kind of things that are happening right now.
“To be able to have resources available to explore all those exciting opportunities that I’ll have with this master’s program is amazing.”
Furbush says that one day he’d love to go into space and believes that it is more feasible now than ever, and could be even more so in 10 years, when there are more programs that put civilians into space.
He has a dream of going to Mars, but if he could pick anything to do, it’d be something a little different.
“If we’re really out there, I think it’d be cool to experience inter-stellar travel,” Furbush.
It’s safe to say his knowledge of both the real world and football will help out the Wolverines defense this season, with Furbush slated to be a key contributor once again. Before football season, however, he will be an intern at Ford (at the Dearborn plant) in the research and development area.
“I think it’s going to give me a really refined look at what engineering is like, working in an industry that’s been around for so long,” Furbush said. “It’s going to be a great opportunity for me.”
Furbsush isn’t the only aerospace engineer that’s in football in southeast Michigan. Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia studied aerospace engineering at RPI before getting into coaching. Coaching could be in Furbush’s future, but first he has to complete his PHD in linebackerology, a phrase coined by Michigan defensive coordinator Don Brown.
Before his internship, Furbush will go to Paris, France with the team, something he’s just as excited about. He said going to Rome last year was a great experience for him and his teammates and thinks this trip will be just as good.
“It gave them sort of an outsider’s view to who we are as Americans being abroad,” Furbush said. “Taking yourself outside of your comfort zone and what you’re used to in your normal surroundings. I think that’s something a lot of guys wouldn’t have gotten otherwise if not for that trip.”
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