Anastasiia Serova is a senior at BCCHS. She was born and raised in Russia until her family moved to the U.S. three years ago. Even though she shares a different background, she feels welcomed here. Accustomed to academic rigor, she dove into her studies, excelling in nearly every subject, but unexpectedly, fell in love with the Government and Economics courses. Having a desire to be able to express her thoughts clearly, she joined debate and writing clubs. As a big fan of journaling and scrapbooking, she felt drawn to journalism. Being part of the journalism club allows her to learn more about people in her community and share culture. 

Outside school, she prefers spending time with books and magazines, music, drawing, and sketching. Since learning languages has become a habit over the years, Anastasiia is now learning French. She also likes to hang out and look at the moon in her neighborhood after she is finished with her schoolwork and washing dishes. She finds peace in observing the sunset from a balcony and noticing beauty in little things. She prefers abstraction over constancy. Abstraction allows for a variety of perspectives and interpretations, and the fact that there is no one answer fascinates her. That’s why her sketches rarely depict anything physical: they are more of a flow of thoughts. Anastasiia’s love for literature and writing grew from this. People may speak the same language, but the use of words can open up another world. On weekends, she visits an artist and helps him in his studio. There, she draws inspiration for her artworks and shapes her career aspirations. Curious about fashion, in the studio she became interested in creating design paintings and transferring them to textiles. This is why she now wants to study surface and textile design in college. 

Although Anastasiia mostly had a positive experience at school, she faced significant challenges in one of her AP classes, which led to many mental breakdowns, preventing her from fully enjoying her junior year. She learned to accept failure and that one can’t be the best at everything, and Anastasiia specifically, can’t be good at Computer Science. Apart from that, she shares a story of success in overcoming toxic shame due to her accent, which initially hindered her from making friends. Now she openly initiates conversations with others, free from fear and embarrassment. As a reward for overcoming this challenge, she now receives sweet compliments about her accent. Being open in communication enables her to connect with her peers and learn from them. This is why she works hard in her journalism class – to capture students’ voices in the newspaper. She believes that growth is only reinforced through others, and when students work together, anything is possible. In her work, she aims to explore controversial topics to share a diversity of opinions and expose herself and others to different perspectives. After meeting so many people, she now has sixteen ways she’s been addressed, each one carrying a unique relation, meaning, or bond that she will continue to cherish.