Psychology student supports fellow Chaiken Scholars through mentorship

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Diana Lopez, a fourth-year student at Penn State majoring in psychology and minoring in Spanish, is using her roles as a Chaiken Scholar and peer success coach to mentor first-generation students like herself.

The York, Pennsylvania, native has served as a peer success coach in the Liberal Arts Chaiken Center for Student Success for the last year, having first connected with the center through the LA 083: First-Year Seminar in the Liberal Arts course during her first year. Now, she mentors students enrolled in the Chaiken Scholars section of the course, supporting and staying connected with four to five mentees.

“Being able to help overall, it’s been a great experience so far, like being able to help out fellow Chaiken Scholars and first-gen students,” Lopez said.

Reflecting on her own experiences, Lopez shared that her first year of college was a difficult one, marked by academic struggles and challenges in getting involved. She started attending Liberal Arts Chaiken Center events regularly and soon learned about the opportunity to become a peer success coach, realizing it would be a great way to support students going through similar struggles, she said.

Lopez said she credits her former Chaiken Scholars mentor, Kaisha Garvin-Darby with inspiring her path — providing her with valuable guidance, resources and assistance figuring out what she wanted to do with her degree.

“I know I wanted to be able to give that back to other first-year and first-generation students and be able to help them navigate their way through the College of the Liberal Arts with resources and opportunities,” Lopez said.

Lopez said being a Chaiken Scholar has helped her significantly. Among other things, it led to a research internship she will complete this summer through the McNair Scholars Program, which supports first-generation college students.

“That’s one of the opportunities that I don’t think I would have if it weren’t for the Chaiken Center, as well as funding opportunities,” Lopez said.

Another funding opportunity allowed Lopez to travel to Spain and Italy this summer as part of the Multilingual and Intercultural Communication embedded program. She and the other students spent two weeks abroad, with one week in Spain and another in Italy.

During the spring semester, Lopez and her classmates met virtually via Zoom with Italian students who are studying English. Once abroad, they then met in person to complete their joint project and present it together.

Lopez said she was initially hesitant about going abroad, as she had never traveled outside the United States before. But the program’s director, Associate Teaching Professor of Spanish Lauren Halberstadt, convinced her to do it.

“She was really supportive and helpful in helping me make that decision,” Lopez said.

While abroad, Lopez had the chance to explore various cities in Spain and Italy, including Bilbao, Florence and Bologna. She noted the program will be beneficial to her career goals, given her Spanish minor.

“Being able to apply the Spanish that I’ve learned in Spain was extremely helpful,” Lopez said. “With my career, I want to be an occupational therapist, so I think being able to connect with patients who are Spanish-speaking is going to be extremely valuable.”

Beyond Penn State, Lopez volunteers as a crisis hotline counselor with Centre Helps. She said she'd been interested in mental health counseling since her first year and applied for the opportunity right away after hearing about it.

“You learn about motivational interviewing and all these different skills that I know will be helpful when I go to grad school,” Lopez said.

Although the role can be emotionally intense, she said she finds it deeply rewarding.

“Every shift I leave feeling good that I was able to help somebody,” Lopez said.

Lopez is also gaining hands-on experience in her field as a research assistant in the College of the Liberal Arts. She began working in the Laboratory for Anxiety and Depression Research during her second year and has since become involved with the Development, Risk, and Resilience Laboratory as well.

“It’s really helpful to get research experience and get a taste of what grad school would look like research-wise,” Lopez said. “Being a research assistant kind of opens up your eyes to what it actually looks like and how the research process is done.”

After graduating in May 2026, Lopez said she plans to take a gap year before applying to occupational therapy school with hopes of working in early intervention.