DALLAS, Pa. — Since she was young, Cassie Dierolf was interested in mental health and disability advocacy, but wasn’t sure where she wanted to go for college or what she wanted to do for a career.
She said things began to click into place for her on her first visit to Penn State Wilkes-Barre, where she immediately had the sense that was where she wanted to go to major in rehabilitation and human services (RHS).
“I had applied to different majors at other schools, but when I did my tour at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, I fell in love,” said Dierolf, a resident of Kingston and graduate of Wyoming Valley West High School. “I loved the positivity I felt on campus and the smaller size of the campus, which made it easy to navigate. It felt like such a nice, tight-knit community and I really liked that. I remember thinking, ‘This is it. This is the place where I’m going.’”
During her tour, she met faculty members including Melisa Littleton, associate teaching professor and coordinator of the RHS program. Now in her fifth and final year at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, Dierolf said the faculty have been a key part of her experience at the campus.
“I have become very close with my professors and know I can talk to them about anything, not just academics. They are all easily approachable,” she said. “I talk to Mrs. Littleton a lot. She is very helpful anytime I have a question. She goes above and beyond with flexibility and is very understanding. She always has the resources to help me when I need help with something.”
The guest speakers in Dierolf’s courses helped her understand more about the populations served by professionals in the RHS field as she determined what her chosen career path might be.
“Because of my personal and volunteer experiences, I was always interested in topics surrounding mental health, disability, disability advocacy and rehabilitation,” she said. “I started out open-minded in what I wanted to do. We had a lot of guest speakers and that helped me narrow down what I was most interested in doing.”
It was also through a guest speaker that she discovered the opportunity for an internship at PA Inclusive, an organization that provides education and personalized support services for people with intellectual disabilities.
“The creator of the program spoke to one of my RHS classes about what they do and what they stand for,” Dierolf said. “I was drawn to it instantly and fell in love with their mission. They were the first place I contacted when I was looking for an internship.”
She said she works about 20 to 30 hours each week helping people who have intellectual disabilities. At PA Inclusive, Dierolf holds several roles: as a direct support professional, she helps clients in their homes and in the community; as a job coach, she accompanies clients to their workplaces to assist with their adjustment to their job environment, help them stay on task and make sure they have the accommodations they need; and as part of the Transition Academy Social Club, she helps high school students and young adults learn job skills and life skills to help them navigate the transition to adulthood.
“This work requires a lot of creativity because no two clients are ever the same,” she said. “In the same day, I see people with very different learning styles, and I need to adapt to be able to work with them.”
In addition to her internship, Dierolf is involved on campus and in the community. She is a member of Nittany Gives at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, a newer club that was created to give back to the community. One of the club’s projects this year is a purse drive, collecting donated purses from the campus community and filling them with supplies to donate to the Domestic Violence Service Center. Dierolf volunteers with Beyond Behavior Consulting, which works with children and youth who have been diagnosed with autism. She has also given her time to Meals on Wheels starting in middle school, helping create meals for people in the community.
“It was when I was helping with Meals on Wheels when I was 11 or 12 that I first realized that I’d like to help people,” Dierolf said. “That was when I thought that was the direction I’d like to go in my career.”
Community involvement is personal for Dierolf, who was diagnosed with autism at age 3 and told by a psychologist as a teen that she would never be able to go to college, she said.
“My family needed help and it was the community that was able to help us find those resources and get what we needed. That’s why I am where I am now and I want to be able to give back,” she said. “I’ve come so far, even since starting college. I was always super shy and didn’t know how to speak to people or give presentations. But now I love public speaking and have even won research awards. I’m learning a lot of the skills I’m going to need in the field and already using them.”
Through the abilities Dierolf has developed at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, she has successfully presented her research at the Pennsylvania Rehabilitation Association’s annual conference, the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Penn State Lehigh Valley and the Celebration of Scholarship at Penn State Wilkes-Barre.
After earning her bachelor’s degree, Dierolf said she plans to attend graduate school to study rehabilitation counseling with the goal of being a clinical psychologist in private practice.
“I’m also open to being a professor in the field one day, inspired by Mrs. Littleton,” she said. “I just want to be able to help people in some way and I have learned how I can do that through the RHS program.”