Reliable, creative, dependable, and authentic are all words used to describe Sierra Swenson, a senior at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Swenson is a busy student involved with many things. She is double majoring in psychology and Spanish studies with a minor in cognitive science. 

She is part of Psi Chi, an international honor society in psychology; the neurocognitive lab and University Honors (UH). Swenson also works at UMDs Recreational Sports and Outdoor Program. “I just like being busy and I like being around people,” Swenson said. “A lot of what I do is helping other people.”

On top of her already eventful schedule, Swenson peer leads for the UHs UST 1000 classes. She has been a peer leader for three years, working with Joelle McGovern, the UH program coordinator, each year. 

“With peer leading, I'm assisting my peers in making the transition from high school to college as smooth as it can be,” Swenson said. The whole purpose of the UST course is to ease the transition for students from the K-12 system to UMD. 

Not every student needs to take the UST 1000 class. Students who come to UMD with 30 or more credits and students who are getting a bachelor of science degree do not need to take the course. According to Samuel Shanks, the faculty coordinator for the UST 1000 program and an assistant professor at UMD, about 70% of UMD students take the course.

“The peer leaders are there to act kind of like a bridge between the students and the faculty members and to provide specific expertise about things that the faculty members don’t know much about,” Shanks said. “And there’s certain things that the students are just more comfortable talking to a peer leader about than talking to a faculty member sometimes, and that varies from student to student.” 

According to Swenson, peer leaders can help with all sorts of challenges ranging from academics, social life, and personal needs. “For instance, I had one student who was struggling with managing school and her social life,” Swenson said. “We worked together to create a balance of the two and boundaries that would help allow her to better divide her time.”

Swenson thinks the most important thing for UST students to know is that if they become comfortable with the uncomfortable, it will set them up for success in several settings, including academic, social, and personal. 

Peer leaders serve as a future version of the students in the UST 1000 class. They have gone through their freshman year and similar scenarios, and now they can provide their tips to current freshmen on how to get through it. 

Most peer leaders don’t come back for a second or third year but Swenson has stuck around. “I think the reason I continued being a peer leader for so long is because of my own peer leader freshman year and Sam Shanks,” Swenson said. “They showed me how I could serve my peers and contribute to their adjustment to college.”

McGovern thinks Swenson has been a peer leader for so long because it speaks to her character. “She’s generous and I think it’s passion,” McGovern said. “She shows up because she cares.”

To become a peer leader, you have to take a one-credit training course. “That class is the most fun class that I get to teach,” Shanks said. 

“Peer leader training was a fun, yet challenging environment,” Swenson said. “Our instructor, Sam Shanks, who is really wonderful, pushes us to step outside our comfort zone in order to become effective leaders for the UST 1000 courses.”

In that training class, Shanks teaches how to do an executive skim. That can mean only reading the first sentence of each paragraph to get a general idea of the text. Reading the whole text is only optional and often not done. “Sierra just read everything, including the footnotes,” Shanks said. “That tells you a lot about Sierra’s tendencies: deeply curious mind, very intellectually energetic and capable of wrapping her head around some remarkably complex stuff while still being humble and civilized.”

McGovern knows she’s not the only one who feels the way she does about Swenson. “She's just so genuine and so reliable and puts her heart and effort into anything she does. She is so smart and such a researcher and has accomplished so much,” McGovern said. “She just connected with students and came up with learning activities and was so energized. She knew how to teach the content, she developed as a leader, and students connected with her.”

“She took her understanding a step further by saying ‘you know what helped me understand my own way of graduating with honors… I made this for myself and I think it would be beneficial for students to have this,’” McGovern said. “So she helped me develop not just the UMD grad planner, but a UH grad planner and I’ve been using this tool that she created ever since.”

“Through designing a very useful instructional tool to help honors students, to developing community events to make sure honors students know her and feel like their part of something helping create a sense of belonging, sharing her stories authentically and then consistently always being available with herself through her seminar office hours. She’s just been the model, she’s done a great job,” McGovern said. “And what is lovely about it is she doesn’t need to. She has so many other things she’s involved with, but she still makes time for this.”

Swenson is currently applying to Neuroscience PhD graduate programs “with the goal of providing a better understanding of the neural correlates of mood disorders and becoming a research professor,” Swenson said. 

“I think she is going to really enjoy graduate school and do really well,” Shanks said. “She’s my hero.”

“I’m very excited about what her next steps are going to be,” McGovern said. “I’m going to miss her, she’s made me a better teacher.”