Karlie Wiese has been named one of the Spring 2021 Undergraduates of the Quarter, and we couldn’t be prouder of her.

Karlie grew up in the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon.  She attended Phoenix High School, home of the Pirates.  She originally came to OSU with the intent to major in Nutrition with the Dietetics option to become a Dietitian. OSU is the only school in Oregon that has a dietetics program.

Karlie actually really disliked chemistry when she was in high school (long, long ago in 2007, she says) and dropped the class after the first quarter. She procrastinated as long as she could before she started her chemistry courses for Nutrition. She ended up loving chemistry so much that she was always eager to dive into her chemistry reading and homework. Additionally, she was working as a tutor and really enjoyed sharing her chemistry knowledge with other students and helping them better understand the material. She decided it was time to make a big change (her senior year!) and switch from Nutrition to Chemistry with an education focus.

She’s not currently performing any research, but may help conduct some research in chemistry education over the next year, and has been toying with the idea of getting into a research lab.  She has been working as a TA for the 23x Gen Chem series for the past couple of years now. Karlie reports absolutely love it and says it has really helped to solidify her decision to go into teaching chemistry. Something else that might be mildly interesting to note is that she didn’t start college until about 9 years after finishing high school, and she’ll be 32 when she finishes her bachelor’s degree.  After she finishes her bachelor’s, she says, she’ll move on to grad school. She’s still figuring out if she wants to pursue a Master’s in Science Education or go for Chemistry. After grad school, her plan is to teach Chemistry at a high school, or possibly college.

Karlie is a mom to a five-year-old, so free time outside of school has been virtually non-existent; however, she enjoys hiking with her family and just being in nature. She’s definitely looking forward to this summer as it’s the first summer in 16 years that she won’t be working or taking classes. Hopefully they’ll be able to make some camping trips and explore the state. They’ve all definitely been going a little stir-crazy during these pandemic times over the past year, so a bit of fun out of the house is long overdue!

She says it’s hard to pick one, but her favorite genres are sci-fi and nonfiction. If she has to pick one, she it’d have to be The Martian, by Andy Weir.

Karlie wanted to say, “thank you to all of the instructors for being so adaptable over the past year and working hard to ensure students could continue on with their education during these unusual times!”

We’re so proud of all our Undergraduates of the Quarter for their many accomplishments and wish Karlie the best of luck with all her future plans.