few months into freshman year, Mia H. DiLorenzo ’26 found herself in the ICU with dozens of tubes hooked into her chest. Her left lung had collapsed after a poorly angled climbing fall, and she would have to undergo a series of major surgeries.

She shows me a photo of her standing in the hospital holding a large fluid bag and laughs. “I have some really funny pictures from that era of my life,” she says.

We’re sitting in the basement of the SOCH where Mia is busy running weekly Harvard Outdoor Club office hours. She navigates through the cluttered room meticulously, showing me a stash of hiking boots, sleeping bags, skis, and two plastic cups filled with a green and blue-colored mixture of vinegar and detergent; there’s recently been a fruit fly infestation.

It’s all knowledge she’s accumulated over her four years at Harvard. Prior to college, in fact, she didn’t ever spend much time outdoors. The chances of encountering a hikeable mountain in Minnesota, Mia’s home state, are close to zero, she tells us. “Flying into Minnesota is like landing on a Monopoly board. It’s completely flat,” she says.

Her freshman year trip with the Freshman Outdoor Program in New Hampshire provided plenty of proper hiking trails. Mia says it was also a turning point for her in college, though she didn’t know it at the time. Once on campus, she applied to be a HOC and FOP leader and quickly found herself immersed in both the community and challenge of being outside.

“It is kind of an addicting feeling to be competitive with yourself and in a physical way,” she says. “It sort of materialized into longer and longer hikes and these really arbitrary challenges and goals that I kind of wanted to complete.”

These challenges have included a study abroad in Bhutan; completing the “48” — hiking all 48 mountains over 4,000 feet in New Hampshire; traversing the 32-mile Pemi Loop and the Presidential Traverse in a day; and plans to run the Boston Marathon in the upcoming spring.

She’s also seen a fair share of injuries through these adventures, including a fractured femur and tibia during a lead climbing expedition and most recently, a sprained ankle while leading a FOP trip.

But these accidents have never disincentivized Mia from staying outdoors. “I always have a new injury or a new something. But that's all part of the game,” she says.

The choice that created the groundwork for Mia’s risk-taking philosophy was coming to Harvard in the first place. “I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to get out of the Midwest for college,” she says, telling us the prospect of leaving home was terrifying for her.

“I might as well take the risk because the time is going to pass anyways,” she says.

Still, Mia argues there is a difference between recklessness and risk. She’s taken steps to make sure that she is more prepared to handle riskier situations, putting in over 80 hours of medical training to receive her first-responder certification over the summer.

Many of the lessons have also been learned through trial and error — note, for example, a spontaneous hike at Longs Peak, Colorado over the summer. Right before reaching the summit, she realized that she lacked the proper equipment to traverse the rocky area and was running low on food and water.

She decided to turn back. “I’ll do it again at some point in my life. That was a situation where I decided the risk was not worth it,” she says.

Risk-taking is not just about trying to complete the most dangerous task, Mia says. It’s about wanting to lead an interesting life. She finds challenges through her academics and is currently writing her senior thesis on the history of a former cattle-ranch turned into a plutonium pit during the Cold War. On runs, she’ll take all the green lights at a crosswalk without a route plan — “you just kind of go where the crosswalks tell you to go, and you end up somewhere interesting.”

But the most important reason why Mia feels most prepared to take on challenging and intense situations is the people around her — from her roommate who took her to the ICU freshman year to her family and the community she’s built at Harvard.

“There is this sense of community, love, and care that's really grounded a lot of the things that I do. And I feel comfortable taking big risks, because I know that people are there to catch me if I need it,” she says.

Her experiences have taught her to be more mindful about the decisions she makes. “It reminds me to be intentional with how I spend my time at Harvard, and also be even more intentional with the way I want to spend the rest of my life,” she says.

Looking beyond Harvard, Mia wants to apply her interest in environmental history and storytelling to whatever she chooses to do next. No matter what, she hopes to do something she loves. For now, the future is wide open.

“I don’t think I’m ready to be boring yet,” she says.

—Associate Magazine Editor Claire Jiang can be reached at [email protected].