Penn State Berks Senior Spotlight: Viktoriia Vozharenko

WYOMISSING, Pa. — Born in Odessa, Ukraine, Viktoriia Vozharenko moved to Lancaster with her family in 2018. Despite living in the U.S. for a short time before graduating from high school, she was accepted to all the colleges to which she applied, but she said that Penn State was her first choice.

Her plan was to complete her first two years at Penn State Berks and complete her degree at University Park, but she explained that she fell in love with the Berks campus and changed her major so she could remain at Berks for all four years. Vozharenko will graduate from Penn State Berks with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a minor in writing and digital media at 10 a.m., Saturday, May 10, at the Santander Arena in Reading.

Before her first semester began, Vozharenko was laying the groundwork for her success. During the summer of 2021, she participated in two programs: Pathway to Success: Summer Start and the Aspiring Scholars Program. Both programs provided her the opportunity to acclimate to college-level learning over the summer.

During her time at Penn State Berks, Vozharenko became one of the most active students on campus, both inside and outside the classroom. As a first-year student, she was inducted into the Cohen-Hammel Fellows Program, a comprehensive scholarship program for outstanding students. She became a member of the Penn State Schreyer Honors College and the College Honors Program at Penn State Berks. In addition, she worked as a teaching assistant for math.

Vozharenko quickly became interested in research and for the last two years, she has conducted research with her faculty mentor Ada Leung, associate professor of marketing. Together they studied the effects of social media on the mental health of young consumers. This was also the subject of Vozharenko’s honors thesis for the Schreyer Honors College.

“This study offers a nuanced perspective on how social media influences the mental health of young adult consumers, highlighting themes such as boredom, inaccurate mental accounting of social media usage and negative emotions amid social media usage,” Vozharenko said.

This May, Vozharenko received the with the Schreyer Medal, awarded to graduating Schreyer Scholars who successfully complete their thesis. She celebrated by "ringing the gong," a symbolic act of achievement for Schreyer Scholars as they celebrate the completion of their theses at an event at University Park known as “Gong Days.”

Vozharenko presented her research at various conferences including the Penn State Eastern Regional Undergraduate Research Symposium, the Higher Education Council of Berks County Undergraduate Research & Creativity Conference, the Penn State Berks Research and Creativity Symposium​, the American Council on Consumer Interests and the American Marketing Association Winter Academic Conference.

This summer, she will present her research at the Marketing & Management Transformation in the Age of Digital Challenges Conference in Hong Kong.

It wasn’t all academics for Vozharenko, who was active in several clubs on campus, serving on the student government association as social media manager, then chair of student affairs committee and finally president. She also served as Lion Ambassador, a student tour guide and the treasurer of the Honors Club.

Despite all these commitments, she still found time to serve the community. She participated in the college’s efforts to help clean up the Schuylkill River Trail and wrote letters to seniors in assisted living to help alleviate loneliness through the college’s Operation Smilegram. Outside Penn State Berks, Vozharenko found time to volunteer at the Calvary Church in Lancaster with their Refugees Placement Program and with the Slavic Baptist Church.

For all her accomplishments, Vozharenko has received several awards, including a Student Government Association Award for her service and commitment to the organization and the Campus Life Rising Star Award.

Vozharenko also had an opportunity to gain real-world experience through an internship. She worked at Your Language Connection, a company that interprets and translates language, primarily in school settings, starting as an interpreter of the Ukrainian and Russian languages to English and then working in a second internship as a social media manager and event planner.

She also worked as an interpreter for another company, Language Bank, which handles translation for medical purposes.

Through these experiences, Vozharenko already has a job lined up after college, working as an interpreter at AMN Healthcare.

“Starting college as a first-generation student, I felt like a lone warrior. At Penn State Berks, I found my chosen family and myself,” Vozharenko said  about her time at Penn State Berks.

Vozharenko made good use of her time at Penn State Berks helping others, from her research on the effects of social media on young adults, to her service to the college through clubs, to volunteering with the college and in her community, she has made a lasting impression.