Geographically, Fair Lawn and Bosnia are about 4,500 miles apart. But culturally, the gap is almost beyond reach. When Dijana and her mother immigrated to the U.S. in 1997, she left behind a war-torn country where her last addresses included a concentration camp and refugee camps. Her hometown of Sanski Most in northwestern Bosnia had been without power and running water throughout the war between Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. She had survived bombings, psychological torture, forced marches and the deaths of her father and many other family members. To say Dijana suffered massive culture shock upon arriving in the U.S. is a major understatement. But the then-15-year-old rolled with the punches and adapted, just as she had adapted to the horrors of war and starvation. By the time she was accepted to Rutgers-Newark in 2001, Dijana’s academic abilities won her a place in the Honors College as well as scholarships and financial assistance.

Dijana says one of the incentives that drove her to survive in Bosnia was her desire to see in the year 2000. “The idea of a new century and a new millennium was so exciting,” she recalls. Here in America, her motivation is to keep busy because “it keeps me from thinking of the past,” and to honor some of the people who helped her survive. She chooses to honor them by volunteering as a tutor at the 13th Avenue School, and working with Goodwill Industries, serving meals in their soup kitchen while also helping the organization review and possibly re-vamp some of its programs.

She also plans to become a dentist and do pro-bono work, inspired by friends who provided free dental care to her back in Bosnia. In fact, she is taking a year off before starting dental school so she can continue her volunteer work at Goodwill and help a researcher at the University of Dentistry and Medicine of New Jersey develop a review course book.

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