{"id":30309,"date":"2024-02-21T09:06:48","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T14:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=30309"},"modified":"2024-03-05T13:22:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T18:22:40","slug":"from-kazakhstan-to-greenville-aru-sakhariyanova-26-keeps-her-family-and-culture-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/from-kazakhstan-to-greenville-aru-sakhariyanova-26-keeps-her-family-and-culture-close\/","title":{"rendered":"From Kazakhstan to Greenville, Aruzhan Sakhariyanova \u201926\u00a0keeps her family and culture close"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being away has taught Aruzhan Sakhariyanova \u201926 how important it is to keep a part of herself tethered back home.<\/p>\n

Since leaving Kazakhstan at 17 to finish high school in Japan through her application to the United World College, Sakhariyanova has developed a pattern of weekly calls home. The calls are as important for reinforcing her first language as they are for the therapy of connecting with family. Speaking to the people who love her \u201cmakes my brain reconnect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her international high school offered introductions to colleges and universities around the world and Furman rose quickly to the top of her list.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be fair, it\u2019s the good weather,\u201d she said, laughing.<\/p>\n

\"Woman

Aruzhan Sakhariyanova \u201926<\/p><\/div>\n

Even more, though, she was intrigued by the emphasis on sustainability that she found in both the academic offerings and the campus culture.<\/p>\n

Sakhariyanova is pursuing a double major in sustainability sciences and communication studies. She is also a recipient of recipient of the Bell Tower Scholarship and Davis Scholarship. Her first months at Furman confirmed her interest in sustainability and clarified her direction for the future: Her goal is a career producing environmental documentaries.<\/p>\n

The first semester of college wasn\u2019t easy. On top of adapting to college, she had to adapt to a new culture and new environment.<\/p>\n

Still, \u201cI adapted pretty quickly,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m used to being away from home. I\u2019m used to being independent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WomanThose skills helped her again at the end of her first year year when she traveled with a May Experience class to Iceland. Study away is a central part of The Furman Advantage<\/a>, the university\u2019s educational framework grounded in faculty mentoring, reflection and engaged learning, such as research, internships and study away.<\/p>\n

The three-week trip focused on geology and involved extensive field work at multiple sites. The class analyzed geological patterns in salt deposits \u2013 the hills were formed by volcanoes and are records of how the land keeps changing with time. The geology emphasis wasn\u2019t specific to Sakhariyanova\u2019s major, but her professors made the material engaging and approachable.<\/p>\n

Waterproof notebooks the students received during orientation helped Sakhariyanova keep track of her observations. But it was a challenge to contend with the cold rain that fell during much of the trip. The extended daylight \u2013 20 hours or more at the end of May \u2013 was surreal.<\/p>\n

For Sakhariyanova, it was just one more chance to adapt. Life in another country is \u201ca constant adjustment,\u201d she said. And it\u2019s not only the new culture that presents challenges. When she has chances to visit her family, she realizes, \u201cI\u2019m just forgetting how to live back home sometimes. \u2026 It doesn\u2019t feel the same when we go back as it did before.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s found that successful international students both adapt to the new culture and retain their own culture \u2013 the easier it is to blend in, the more you have to work to not forgot your own language and culture. \u201cDo not get lost,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Furman makes that easier with a tight-knit international student group and events that give opportunities to introduce her country\u2019s fashion, music and dances to the Furman campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it important to represent my country well as I am often the first-person people meet from my country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Calling her family and inviting them into that experience helps her process everything she\u2019s both learning and teaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sort of grounds me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being away has taught Aru Sakhariyanova \u201926 how important it is to keep a part of herself tethered back home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":30382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,37,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication-studies","category-earth-environmental-and-sustainability-sciences","category-study-away-and-international-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}