Tetiana Hrynova is attending Stanford University in Stanford California. She says an experiment the physics department was working on helped her decide to go to school here. “I am from Kharkiv, Ukraine my hometown is the second biggest city in Ukraine and it is located on the East of Ukraine close to Russia border about 50 kilometers from it. I came to the United States because there was an experiment here, which was one of two experiments in the world, which is doing the kind of physics, which I was interested in doing,” she says. “Stanford is particularly interesting because Stanford is running the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, a sub contractor from Department of Energy. My research is dealing with High Energy Physics, which is basically particle interactions, and it is kind of physics in the long term answers the questions where does the world come from and why we live in a world which consist mostly of matter. So it is this kind of things. It is fundamental problems.”
Tetiana spends a lot of time studying, but she says it is also important for her to get out and be involved at Stanford. “I enjoy meeting new people. At Stanford I am running the Ukrainian Student Association and we organize a few events a year for people in the community to introduce them to some Ukrainian culture like Ukrainian cooking or we are [planning to] doing egg painting for Easter so I like doing that and then I really like traveling in the United States and in general,” she says. “For example this year I have been to South California and to Colorado and to Yellow Stone and places like that. I think it is a very beautiful country here nature wise.”
Tetiana says one of the best things about going to a university in the United States is the chance she has been given to experience different cultures of other students. She also continues to enjoy her own way of doing things like she did back home. “I think most of the things in the United States you have chance to really to interact and to get to know other cultures better and the other thing is people are very open and friendly and less stressed,” she says. “People at home recently have been very uncertain about future and this makes them very rude to each other. Like when you go on the street people don’t smile to each other but here it is more the case I believe.”
The news about the Ukraine elections has given her country a lot of exposure recently. Tetiana says it has been good because it gives people around the world an opportunity to learn more about her country. “ What is happening now there was a fraud and the people in my country managed to protest against it and we are going to give this election a second try which is hopefully going to be less improper,” she says. “I believe it is very good for my country because previously a lot of times I have met with people who didn’t know what is Ukraine or where it is and just think it is the same as Russia and I think this election has been happening for the last two months gave us a chance to get better known in the world and it is really really important. The most important thing is whatever happened in the Ukraine in the last month was all resolved democratically. There was no bloodshed and people really didn’t fight with each other violently and I think this is important. This proves that we can find a civilize way to solve our problems and we are getting ready to become a democratic country.”
Once Tetiana Hrynova graduates from Stanford University in a year, she says she would like to work in Europe. “I really hope to find a job back in Europe which will be slightly closer to Ukraine,” she says. “I do not think I can go back to Ukraine at this point because there is no really work for the kind of research I am looking for, but now Ukraine is participates in some multi international projects which I hope to be able to work for.”