Nothing gets her going more than a homemade plate of spaghetti or a night of watching ER. She can play the violin like a prodigy and manage to hold down three majors at the same time. This dynamic woman is Diane Persin (senior-English, secondary English education and music.)

From a young age her parents have molded her in the direction of art and literature. She made frequent visits to concerts of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and participated in many orchestras, such as the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony and the Westmoreland Youth Symphony.

Persin grew up in the small town of Greensburg, just outside Pittsburgh. She attended Fort Allen Elementary School, where she was first introduced to Shakespeare.

Every year the school would have a literature festival, "Bards Fest," where the students would put on a Shakespearean play. The first and last productions that she was involved in were both A Midsummer Night's Dream. From that point on she was firmly rooted in the world of Shakespeare, so much that her senior thesis is an analysis of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

For her parents to provide for her and her sister Mary's musical needs, they often made pilgrimages to Chautauqua, N.Y. There they attended concerts of the Chautauqua Youth Orchestra.

Persin always dreamed that someday she would have the opportunity to play with the ensemble. In 1993, that dream came true. She continued to play in the orchestra for three more years, until she was offered a job in the administrative side of the school. The Chautauqua School of Music Office is still her current place of summer employment.

Persin is not the only musical wiz in her family. Her sister plays the viola and is currently a junior enrolled in the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her brother, Dennis, is 17-years-old and a great cellist. He now plays regularly with the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony and has played professionally with the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra.

Their mother, an elementary school teacher has been the main nurturer of the Persin children's musical endeavors. Since they were small children, she has played the piano to accompany them whenever they needed it. Although their father, an attorney, does not seem to carry the music gene, he has always been supportive in his own way with car rides from classes.

"My parents always raised me to be a renaissance person," said Diane Persin.

Along with being a renaissance person comes gaining a wealth of knowledge, and Persin seems to be doing this with her three majors. By taking this number of courses, a pretty hefty schedule comes as a mandate. The most credits she has ever carried in one semester were, drum roll please, 26 credits. On average she manages to keep the load to only 21 credits, only.

She came to Penn State with the intentions of only majoring in secondary English because she wanted to be a high school English teacher. In her second year of school, she thought that she might want to teach on a higher level, such as a college professor. To achieve this, she felt that she needed another degree in English.

Just a year ago, Persin went in to talk to her advisor and found that with how many music courses that she had just taken for fun, that she was pretty close to meeting the requirements for a music degree. So she said, what the heck, bring it on, and she took on the third major.

Although Persin has been raised in such a highly musical environment, she had not planned on majoring in it. "Its something that I love to do, but I had to make the decision of whether or not to join a conservatory," Persin said.

Instead she wanted to pursue a variety of other interests. Persin had heard of other various professionals who were able to keep up their musical interests on the side of their career choice and she thought that would be something she would want to do.

That is why she has become involved with the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Nittany Valley Symphony. Persin studies under Jim Lyon, professor of violin, while here at Penn State.

In her spare time, Persin works at the Schreyer Honors College as a Recruitment Scholar assistant.

There she designs instructional programs for prospective students. She also helps to update their web site and answers questions for anyone. Persin believes this job will help prepare her for her future career as a teacher by enabling her to interact with people and help answer their questions.