Every student and worker dreams to know the feeling of accomplishment and validation that fills one’s chest after being praised by higher-ups.
Kennesaw State senior Erica Lundak felt just that as she was awarded the high honor of being selected to be KSU’s representative at the Board of Regents’ 2019 Academic Recognition Day.
Lundak received the BOR honor because of her community involvement and academic achievement, having maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout her educational career at KSU.
Humbled and surprised to be chosen to represent KSU, Lundak said that she was delighted to meet KSU President Dr. Pamela Whitten, whom she holds in high regard.
The community involvement that Lundak was recognized for stems from her internship at the Center for Disease Control and her internship at the WinShape Camps, a Christianity-centered community program for kids.
Three summers after joining WinShape as a summer staff member, Lundak is now the operations intern of the international team.
“I focus on logistics, prepping camp for the summer and working with a team whose goal is to make this camp happen internationally,” Lundak said.
The camp works with kids, partnering organizations, churches and members of the participating communities to bring kids fun activities such as crafts, field day games and face painting. WinShape goes into a new community each week and has hosted as many as a thousand campers in a session.
Lundak spent the latter years of her own adolescence dreaming of getting a quality education, and it was a dream that came true.
“I just wanted a degree at first, but I didn’t know which,” Lundak said. “I always had my eyes on KSU for college though, because … the school offered a wide variety of majors and was close to home.”
As a freshman at KSU, Lundak spent time shadowing professionals in nursing, engineering and other fields. Around her sophomore year, the public health education major began to be offered as a new degree program at KSU. After taking a few of the new degree’s introductory courses, Lundak became interested in pursuing the major.
“The degree program was appealing because I knew it would allow me to gain versatile knowledge and skillsets in order to serve populations with their health needs from a number of angles,” Lundak said.
It was her pursuit of academic success in the field that led Lundak to her internship with the CDC. Entirely different in nature than the WinShape internship, the CDC internship was created specifically for Lundak and allows her to receive experience in several different divisions of the organization. Currently, she works primarily within the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine and secondarily with the Medical Assessment Policy Team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q86M6XNyE5o
Under these divisions, Lundak works to evaluate the health of immigrants, migrants and refugees.
“My tasks are very teamwork-oriented, and what I do applies directly to what I learned at KSU,” Lundak said.
Lundak’s goals do not stop with a BOR award or involved internships. Lundak has much more on the horizon.
“I’m considering getting a masters in public health,” Lundak said. “I’ll continue getting more experience serving communities domestically and internationally, whether it be through the CDC or other organizations yet to come.”
