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‘Outstanding scholar’ looks to future at Reed College
The Advocate
Stephen Dietrich says his self-proclaimed status as the “Miss Congeniality” of the science department, as well as knowing a lot of instructors, helped him win the annual Outstanding Student Scholar Award.
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Each year high-achieving students are selected from each Oregon community college to receive the Oregon Community College Association’s (OCCA) Outstanding Student Scholars Award; Dietrich is this year’s recipient from Mt. Hood Community College. Students are chosen based on academic excellence, community involvement and contributions to the learning environment on campus, according to the MHCC website.
“The kind of person you are should be in everything you do,” Dietrich said. He said he thinks the way people respond to his character is the main reason he was selected for the award.
Dietrich said he was waiting outside his physics class when chemistry instructor Joyce Sherpa approached him and verified the spelling of his last name. She said he was being nominated for an award and the deadline was that day.
Dietrich was given a $1,500 scholarship, $500 of which went to covering his last term at MHCC and the rest will go into his financial aid package with Reed College where he will be transferring next fall.
He was invited to the Salem Convention Center where he was recognized by two different branches of the government with all the award winners from the community colleges in Oregon. Each college president spoke and appropriately embarrassed their awarded students, Dietrich said.
“Ski (MHCC President John Sygielski) was creative and interacted with the audience,” Dietrich said. “He told me go to with the flow and I was like ‘Yes sir.’ He is full of energy and must have natural caffeine.”
Dietrich is a tutor for MHCC, works with the Oregon undergraduate Catalytic Outreach and Research Program (UCORE) doing student advising and is an assistant instructor at a Clackamas Philippine Martial Arts Studio.
Dietrich said he has been on the dean’s list of honored students continuously during his time at MHCC; he has a 3.98 grade point average and is a member of Phi Theta Kappa.
Dietrich started at MHCC in 2003 after turning down a scholarship to Syracuse University in order to stay in town and help his family through a rough patch.
Realizing that his initial major of psychology did not occupy his passions, he switched to fulfilling a chemistry transfer program to Reed College.
He overcame a fear of chemistry and science quickly when he took a class at MHCC with Sherpa and chemistry and biochemistry instructor Elizabeth Cohen. Dietrich said it was the way they taught that made it easy to understand.
Dietrich was home-schooled from kindergarten to 12th grade and had to basically teach and grade himself after the fifth grade. Learning from a textbook was not the best method, Dietrich said.
Being the youngest of four children in the family, Dietrich was left to get his work done on his own. “I always had the cloud of punishment over my head,” he said. “That kept me motivated.”
During his high school years, Dietrich was living in the moment and training hard. Martial arts training was his world, he said, with a four-hour minimum training time.
Dietrich took one month out of 2007 and studied with a grand master in the Philippines where he said he had a life-changing experience.
“I always say that I took a year off school and found it more educational,” Dietrich said. “You find things about yourself (and) your character.”
While immersed in the Philippine culture, Dietrich learned the philosophy of Bahala Na (“come whatever may”) and more about the Berdugo martial arts style he said is an art of combat.
Dietrich’s Bahala Na personalities carries over into his personal life, he said.
He is living with is mom and two black cats whom Dietrich said must have part panther in them, because he does not want to make things any harder than they have to be.
His mom is now a nursing supervisor at Mt. Hood Medical Center and letting Dietrich stay with her.
He stays with his mom because it is convenient and she is more stubborn than Dietrich is, he said, so she won.
It has also helped Dietrich reach his goal of getting through MHCC without acquiring any debt.
“You get the same caliber of education as other universities but you get more instructor one-on-one time,” Dietrich said.
He plans on staying with his mom for the first year and possibly moving onto campus after he gets adjusted to Reed College.
“The deeper I look into it, the more I learn about it,” Dietrich said of Reed College, adding that their teacher-to-student ratio at 1:10 is one of the things the school is very proud of.
Being his style to always love free money, Dietrich said that 90 percent of his Reed College financial aid package is free money, grants, while only $4,500 per year is in student loans.
Reed College is in third place when it comes to the number of graduating students who go on to pursue a doctoral degree, according to Dietrich, as well as having the only undergraduate-run nuclear reactor.
Dietrich plans on pursuing a doctorate after completing his chemistry and physics degree at Reed College, but since he has not started looking at graduate schools yet . . . Bahala Na.
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