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When 10-year-old
Natalia Volodina arrived at the Seattle airport after leaving
her native country Kyrgyzstan, she was a little “disappointed’
by the “realities” of American life.
“I expected America to be different based on what you see in the
movies,” says Volodina, an 18-year-old who is enrolled in her
third semester at Dalton State.
“I expected all the people to be tanned and blonde and for there
to be palm trees and convertibles everywhere, like you would see
in movies on TV. The first place that we went to eat was a
‘Wendy’s.’ We didn’t have many places like that in Kyrgyzstan,
so I didn’t know what to do when I got there, or even which line
to be in.”
Her confusion by “all things American” was made even greater due
to the language barrier. When Volodina and her mother moved to
the United States shortly before her eleventh birthday, Volodina,
fluent in Russian, knew virtually no English, only a smattering
of words that her mother had taught her.
Settling in Montana with her mom and Charlie, her mother’s
second husband, Volodina entered sixth grade where she
discovered that she was ahead of her classmates in subjects like
mathematics but not able to fully comprehend her English and
history lessons.
“It’s funny,” she recalls. “People have a tendency of raising
their voices when they’re talking to people who don’t know the
language. So my teacher had such a hard time with me whenever
she tried to explain something.”
Thanks to her new friend Melody and to a school-appointed tutor,
Volodina quickly mastered English, enough so that now, seven
years later, she has no trace of an accent. |
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“When we came here, my mother taught me the little bit of
English that she knew,” she says. “Now I’m teaching English to
her.”
Volodina and her mother lived only briefly in Montana,
resettling to Dalton after Charlie died and the pair came to
live near his sister, who lives in Georgia.
One of the biggest and most pleasant surprises was how green she
found the Northwest Georgia region to be.
“In the part of Montana we lived in it was very flat and there
were no trees, just lots of flat land for the horses and lots of
tumbleweed. We only had green grass for a few months out of the
year. That’s the first thing I noticed when we moved to Georgia
– how green everything is.”
As a student at Northwest High School, Volodina adapted to her
new life, joining the French Club and other organizations, but
deciding to graduate a semester early hoping to meet her goal of
graduating from college by the time she’s twenty-one.
“I doubled up on my courses my last semester of high school,”
she says. “I guess I was just ready to get to college.”
She enrolled at Dalton State, which admittedly was not her
“first choice.”
“I fell in love with the school when I got here,” she says. “I
originally wanted to go to a bigger school, but once I got
involved on campus, I fell in love with Dalton State. It’s been
a blessing here.”
She applied for a position as a Student Orientation, Ambassador,
and Recruitment (SOAR) leader, helping with the orientation
process prior to each new semester.
“Getting to know everybody by working with SOAR and getting to
know people through the Student Activities Office has been great
for me,” she says
“Being a SOAR leader helped me realize how much work people put
into making projects successful that most people don’t realize.
We do a lot for the school and it takes a lot of teamwork.”
An art lover, Volodina is currently pursuing a double major in
accounting and marketing. President of the Accounting Club,
Volodina is the treasurer of the Latin Dance Club on campus. She
plans to complete her education at Dalton State before
eventually entering graduate school. Her dream is to work lots
of locales, including overseas.
“I love to travel and to experience other cultures,” she says.
“I’m trying to choose a degree program that will help me
anywhere I go, in any country. My mom and I have friends all
over the world. I hope that if I go overseas, they will help me
out.
“People are sometimes afraid of being ‘different,’” she says. “I
want all those out there who feel like they are different to be
brave and to use that uniqueness to their advantage. People who
make fun of those who aren’t native to America and put them down
will be proven wrong when you strive for something amazing.” |
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