From Kazakhstan to Cambridge

UPDATED: December 26, 2016 at 3:04 p.m.

In many ways, Nuriya Saifulina ’20 is just like any other freshman: She plays Bioshock and other video games in her free time. She’s a fan of hair and makeup tips, and particularly enjoys watching NikkieTutorials on YouTube. She chows down on Harvard Square staples such as Felipe’s and Crema.

She’s also one of a small number people from her country to ever attend Harvard College.

Her matriculation to Harvard fulfills a dream years in the making. “I have always known that I wanted to study abroad,” says Saifulina, who finished high school one year early and took a gap year.

After attending a prestigious public high school in Astana, Saifulina finds the culture at Harvard to be markedly easygoing: “It was such a cliquey high school... People here [at Harvard] are more fun, more relaxed, much less competitive,” she notes. “No sabotaging, none of that Legally Blonde kind of stuff.”

Harvard’s schooling system feels as liberating as the social scene does. “[In Kazakhstan], you can’t choose the times of classes, the types of classes… Classes here are so much more diverse and interesting,” Saifulina says. “I was so excited to come to Harvard and actually be excited about studying.”

She plans to concentrate in Economics and is currently taking the famed Ec10. For now, though, she’s not too worried about her academic plans. “I’m a freshman, not yet dead inside,” she quips. “I’m still chilling.”

Television has eased her transition to the United States. Saifulina grew up watching American cartoons, Cartoon Network programming and ‘SpongeBob,’ on the government-run television channel, which helped ease her culture shock.

A fellow Kazakhstani teenager’s acceptance to Duke University recently made national headlines, but Saifulina notes that her accomplishment did not get the same attention back home. “My family and I, we just kept it to ourselves,” she says. “There were no tears... no screaming.”

Saifulina feels that Kazakhstani students back home sometimes write off her accomplishment as a matter of luck. Does she feel that she has something to prove to those critics? “I’m just going to do whatever I want. That’s how I’m going to prove myself,” she says. “I’ll prove myself by being part of a community, supporting other people, and taking my academics seriously.”

She also has a message for her Harvard classmates about her home country: “People in Kazakhstan actually love ‘Borat!’ They’re not offended by Borat,” she laughs. “They aren’t even salty, in fact. They’re just very proud that their country was featured.”

This article has been updated to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: December 26, 2016

A previous of version of this article, as well as a previous version of a caption for this article, incorrectly indicated that Nuriya Saifulina ’20 was the first student from Kazakhstan to ever attend Harvard College. In fact, several students from Kazakhstan have attended Harvard College.