Senior Picture: Sierra L. van Dijk

I was born in Morgantown, WV in 1997 where I lived until I was three years old, after which my family moved to Mt. Lebanon, a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA.  I have spent the whole of my academic career within the Mt. Lebanon School System.  I graduated this year from Mt. Lebanon High School as a part of the National Honors Society and Cum Laude.

I will be attending Ohio State University this fall as a first year Honors and Undeclared Engineering student.  I was leaning towards declaring as a pre-Mechanical Engineering Major, but I wanted to take this first semester to learn about each discipline before I made a choice.

While I am at OSU I hope to take advantage of the Co-op program to gain real world experience before entering the work force, since I believe it will be an invaluable part of my education.  I also hope to study abroad at some point during my four years, hopefully in Germany since I took German all four years of high school.

In high school I was a member of the cross country team, swim team, and was an active member of our Science Bowl Club.  However, the best activity I was ever involved in was a 10-day trip to Brazil with Habitat for Humanity.  I traveled with my Dad as a part of a small group from Pittsburgh and we spent our days building homes in Feira Nova, Brazil for women who worked in the local cassava factories.  I spent the trip doing manual labor and learning about the culture, and it helped me to decide that I want my future job to have an outreach or missions component.  Since this trip I have been trying to find ways to make this a reality and I hope that by attending Ohio State University I will be able to acquire and hone the skills I need to have a career that can allow me to help others.  This is why I am excited to attend OSU, so I can start working toward that future.