Category | Arts & Living

JEHP Student Stands Out in the Crowd

Published on March 31, 2009 by Katherine Tippins

Joint Enrollment Honors Program (JEHP) student Zoya Kovalenko will receive the Outstanding Student Award at the University Scholars Awards Ceremony on April 3 in the Bailey Center. “The Outstanding Seniors from every major on campus, plus Zoya as the Outstanding JEHP student, will be honored there,” said Director of Pre-College Programs Dr. Katherine Kinnick. “It is a great honor for this student to be recognized along with the top seniors in each major.”

Photo by Katherine Tippins.

“In Zoya’s case, her GPA and number of credit hours and honors courses were high enough to set her apart from the other students.  Because she started here as a junior, she had many more credit hours than most JEHP students,” Kinnick said. As for Zoya’s feelings on the matter, she said, “I felt really happy. It’s nice to be recognized for being a nerd.”

I met Zoya in the English building. At 17, Zoya looks as young as she is, with a beamy smile and a messy bun of hair falling off the top of her head. I asked Zoya if she knew of someplace quiet where we could have our interview. She told me of the Honors Lounge in the library. On the elevator, I complimented her on the auburn streaks I saw running up to her bun. “Oh, thanks,” she said. “They used to be pink.”

The Honors Lounge is a room with a few tables and chairs, a couch or two, and some fake-looking plants. Only two other students were there, one, a male, was sitting at a table with his laptop, and the other, a female, was reclining on a couch with a magazine. The room was silent. I had wanted a quiet place, but I didn’t want to disturb anyone with our chatter. Zoya marched into this familiar territory and took a seat at the first table next to the guy with the laptop. I followed, opened my notepad and began my questions.

“Excuse me,” said a female voice. “Are you both Honors students?” Zoya said she was. I shook my head. “Well, it can get a little crowded in here if we have too many visitors…” I didn’t want to argue with the woman (although the room was nowhere near capacity), but I also did not want her to ask me to leave. “I’m actually writing an article about JEHP,” I said. “And I’m interviewing her.” The woman’s expression changed. “Oh, please disregard everything I just said,” she said as she left the room. I continued to ask Zoya about her family.

Before her second birthday, Zoya had been to three countries. Her parents are Russian, but she and her older brother were born in Singapore. “My dad was a journalist. We were in Singapore because of his job,” Zoya said. Not long after Zoya was born, the Kovalenkos returned to Russia. “My parents went back to Russia for three months during the fall of communism,” Zoya said. She has never been to Russia since then, but she has revisited Singapore several times.

The Kovalenkos came to the United States with the help of some friends they had made in Singapore. “My parents didn’t want us to grow up in Russia because we would have better life opportunities, more money and better education here,” Zoya said. Zoya, as the daughter of highly educated, multilingual parents, knows the value of education. Her favorite subject is math. “My parents went to the best college in Russia. It was really an accomplishment for my mom because it’s difficult for women to get in,” Zoya said.

Her mother speaks Russian, English and French; her father speaks Russian, English and Chinese. For her part, Zoya is trying to regain her fluency in Russian. “I used to be fluent, but not anymore. My parents are upset about it. It’s frustrating when I would get stuck, especially when I was trying to say something important,” Zoya said. She plans to take courses in Russian language during her college career.

Zoya’s college career has already begun, although she is a senior at Kennesaw Mountain High School (KMHS). During her first semester at KSU, she was able to enroll in pre-calculus and an intermediate Spanish class because she had the necessary prerequisites from high school.

She acquired these prerequisites in the Magnet program, a rigorous course of study in math and science, at KMHS. In the Magnet program, she took three units of math and four units of science during freshman and sophomore years. Because of her advanced standing in math, Zoya has been able to enroll in calculus II before graduating from high school.

When she spoke of her high school, Zoya’s bright face clouded, her eyes became downcast and she began to tap her fingers on the table. Although the Magnet program at Zoya’s high school provided her with a solid foundation in math and science, she became disenchanted with the program her sophomore year. She inquired about joint enrollment programs and was told she would have to drop out of the Magnet program if she chose to participate in joint enrollment.

“I had to decide if dropping out [of the Magnet program] was worth it since I was already about halfway done,” Zoya said. She and her parents were familiar with the joint enrollment experience since her brother was a joint enrollment student at the University of West Georgia in 2005 and 2006. “All of his credits transferred to Georgia Tech,” Zoya said, “and he will now graduate earlier.” She made the decision to enroll at KSU in fall 2007.

The decision to participate in JEHP has paid off for Zoya: “It was infinitely better than my high school, and I was glad to cut down my time at my high school in any way possible. I was able to take advantage of having wonderful professors and learning so much more in shorter class periods,” she said. Her transition into college life was not without apprehension. “I was a little bit nervous that I wouldn’t make any friends because I wasn’t living on campus. The schoolwork scared me until I took my first test,” Zoya said.

She took the necessary steps to become comfortable with her new environment and coursework: “I got a job on campus and started meeting people,” Zoya said. “I’ve been learning how much study time each class requires and I have been reacting accordingly. The reason classes are so short is because they are actually utilized, and they require quite a bit of study time to supplement the lectures.”

Zoya said that some of her favorite things about college are being in control of her schedule and being able to choose her professors. “I also try to pick the most challenging professors, because I want to be challenged,” she said. “I don’t waste a lifetime in my high school classes doing nothing but busywork and daydreaming,” She also enjoys the social atmosphere college provides: “The people in college are so much cooler. First of all, they actually want to learn, and second of all, they are much more friendly and receptive. And my nerdy-ness is embraced, rather than being frowned upon as it was in high school.”

The tapping stopped when the conversation moved to the future. Instead, she used her hands to display enthusiastic gestures as she spoke of her future college career. Zoya will graduate from KMHS in May. After that, she has plans to transfer to another university. She has applied to a few in-state schools, such as the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Emory, and she has applied to many out-of-state schools: Furman, Brown, Yale, Duke, Harvard, Princeton, Johns Hopkins and Georgetown. “My college credits may or may not transfer to the schools I am applying to. I know they will to Tech and UGA, but the other [Ivy League] schools I am applying to most likely will not take the credit. Some schools simply say they will not, and others give the reasoning that they will not because it was used towards my high school graduation credits,”
Zoya said.

Zoya is not discouraged by the possibility of losing credit, nor does it make her want to stay in-state just to keep her JEHP credits. “Even if I attend a school which will not accept my credits, I have no regrets whatsoever about doing JEHP,” Zoya said, “I am so happy I was able to make this transition gradually, because I think it made me appreciate college more and it will help to make my transition to another school next year rather smooth.”

Whichever university Zoya attends, she plans to major in mathematics. “I can’t decide between law school and med school,” she said. “I think math would help me go either way.” Although she is still awaiting decisions from other schools, she said, “I will most likely go to Georgia Tech because I got accepted into the honors program there.”

For Zoya, the experience of joint enrollment was a positive one, even if the credits she has earned at KSU don’t ultimately count toward her bachelor’s degree: “If I can, I will graduate earlier, but even if I cannot, at least I have had the opportunity to transition into college life, and I have already learned how to balance studies with work and a social life. I’ve also learned the great skill of prioritizing,” she said. Zoya said she would recommend participation in a joint enrollment program to others because “even if it does not advance you academically by arming you with extra credits (although it will for most people), it is a terrific social experience.”

Zoya and I left the Honors Lounge at the completion of our interview. I could not tell whether or not the typing boy and the reading girl were glad about our departure. They barely looked up from their respective media throughout our time there. We made our way to the elevator, this time to go down and leave each other’s company. On the ground floor of the library we exchanged good-byes, and I left the future doctor or lawyer with the bright smile and the pink-turned-auburn streaks.