Two newly minted college graduates who received four-year scholarships through Greater Pike Community Foundation are now starting their careers in earnest – one in art and the other in science.
Ava Nienstadt, recipient of the Ann Intili Morey Art Scholarship, and Yoshikatsu Sumitomo, who received the Reggie Cheong-Leen & Peter Spielhagen Scholarship, are the first of Greater Pike’s four-year scholarship recipients to graduate.
Ava received a B.A. in art history from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, on May 18, with a minor in French. She recently embarked on an internship at an art agency in New York City. Yoshi began a job as a database engineer shortly after graduating from Penn State University (State College, PA) on May 9 with a B.S. in computer science and a double minor in cyber security and mathematics.
“I struggled to get an internship as a junior, as the computer science field had become extremely saturated,” Yoshi said. “Luckily, my school offered a great career fair that helped me land one, which led me to the full-time job I have today. This could not have been done without the scholarship support I was getting all throughout college.”
Indeed, the scholarships enabled by Greater Pike made a profound difference for the two students, both members of the Delaware Valley High School Class of 2021.
“I was able to focus on my education instead of working night shifts to make ends meet,” said Yoshi. “The scholarship gave me the liberty to enjoy the student life at Penn State that I would not have had otherwise.”
“I was paying for school on my own, and getting this scholarship every year meant that I left school with significantly less debt than I thought I would,” said Ava.
Ava, who grew up in Dingmans Ferry, has an interest in sculpture, ceramics, and jewelry making, but became fascinated with art history while still at DV. “I then took an intro-level art history course at Dickinson during my freshman fall semester and really enjoyed it, so I stuck with it,” she said. Ava worked at the art gallery on the Dickinson campus and loved it. “I’ve been thinking I would like to continue working in museums or galleries,” she said, “but I am open to exploring different careers within the art history discipline,” such as the artists’ agency where she has her internship.
Yoshi, for his part, “always had a great interest in engineering. Like many others, I grew up playing with Legos and old computers. I remember my younger self fixing the old family computer when things didn’t work properly.” At Penn State, Yoshi “participated in the university hackathons and was an executive in the Google developer student club.” He was also a student athlete at DV, playing on the soccer and volleyball teams.
Ava developed a yen for travel as a DV junior when she went to Hyeres, France, a town on the Mediterranean coast, with the Rotary Student Exchange program. It was to be an entire school year but ended abruptly in March due to Covid-19. As a junior in college, she did a year abroad, starting at Dickinson’s Toulouse, France, campus for the first semester, then studying in Rome as part of a Temple University program for the second.
“The Temple partnership is mostly for studio art, but they have some art history courses as well,” said Ava. “I took a course on Renaissance art, a papermaking course and an intensive Italian course. I did fall in love with Rome. I really want to go back, maybe get a job there for a couple of years.” Ava has more travel coming up: a trip to Brazil this summer to visit a friend she met in France.
The sponsors of the two Greater Pike scholarships have high praise for the recipients. “I am so satisfied to hear Yoshi has found a full-time job,” said Reggie Cheong-Leen. “It is encouraging how the younger generation applies their energy and skill into crafting their future.”
“Ava is a talented and dedicated person with a very promising career ahead of her,” said Ann Morey, who chairs Greater Pike’s Scholarship Committee. “She pursued opportunities both at Dickinson and abroad that added to her extraordinary college experience.”
Online donations to Greater Pike’s scholarship funds can be made at www.greaterpike.org/scholarships.
Greater Pike offers individuals, families, and local businesses an opportunity to provide a permanent and personal way to give back to the community. For more information about opening a fund or scholarship, or contributing to an existing fund, contact Rick Little, Executive Director, at (570) 832-4686, ricklittle@greaterpike.org, or visit www.greaterpike.org, Facebook.com/GreaterPike, or Instagram.com/GreaterPikeCF.
