Having the opportunity to take herhigh school courses in English was the initial introduction for OlgaKaragiaridi to consider coming to the United States and going to DartmouthCollege.
?I was born in Kazakhstan. It is a country in Middle Asia, former USSRRepublic and when I was ten my parents moved to Greece and that is where theycurrently live and that is where I went to middle school and high school,? shesays. So when I was in high school theyopened an international baccalaureate class in my high school, which is a typeof classes where you can take all your subjects in English and it usuallyprepares you to study abroad,? she says.
?At first I found the idea oftaking all my subjects in English interesting that is why I enrolled there. Ialso wanted to study abroad so I can experience living in a very differentculture, from Greece from where I was brought up and I thought it would be realexciting so that is how I ended up here, I just applied to six universitiesthat I found online and I didn?t know anything about the campuses or how lifeis there and I ended up at Dartmouth.?
Olga says being able to takeChemistry courses to see if that really was the major for her before fullycommitting to it is yet another reason studying in the states as aninternational student really was for her. ?I was pretty fascinated in Sciences from high school. I was very much into Biology and Chemistryin general, but I was also very interested in Literature and foreign languagesso I wasn?t very sure if I wanted to get involved in only Sciences when I gotto college,? she says.
?That is anothergood reason why I decided to go to the states. When you study in Greece you haveto choose your bachelor degree straight once you are out of high school and youwould be pushed to ingest a bachelor?s degree and you would only be takingChemistry courses for the next four years,? she says.
?While once I got to Dartmouth Ihad the chance to try my hand at Chemistry and discovered through the fouryears that I actually like it and at the same time not miss out on liberal artseducation and take courses in other fields. So at first I was a little bit intimidated because the level ofChemistry here is very high we have a very challenging program in Chemistrywhich sometime made me feel disconnected from it, but I am really glad I stuckthrough it and I can say that I really enjoy Chemistry.
When it comes to internationalstudents going to Dartmouth, Olga says there has recently been an increase ofinternational students at the college. She says there is also a new policy that will affect internationalstudents in a positive way. ?We havehad quite an explosion this year. Theclass of 2011 at Dartmouth had I guess rounding one hundred internationalstudents, maybe more than one hundred international students and taking intoaccount the whole 2011 class body of students so ten percent of the class wasinternational which is quite an achievement,? she says.
?So I think Dartmouth is becoming moreinternational actually we just came out with a new policy that really helpsinternational students. Dartmouthbecame a need program for international students. International students with families that have an income belowseventy-thousand dollars per year do not have to pay anything to go to thecollege they automatically receive a scholarship here for free so I believe weare going to see many more international students here."
Once Olga graduates, she doesn'tsee herself going back home to utilize her degree. She says she would like to perhaps go to graduate school at somepoint. ?I?m not quite sure. My major isChemistry and that doesn?t have much future in Greece as it will have in thestates, like I am almost certain that I am going to be doing my Ph D degree andI am hoping to do it here in the United States because I can do many morethings and do more research oriented things, there is much more equipment, muchmore endowment and the Ph D can take five years I really don?t think that Ihave that much time in the future. Thefuture will show.?