Coming to Union by way of two big cities, Brooklyn and the 12th century city of Gomel in Belarus, Alexandra Dubodel is enjoying the closeness and support of the small College community, whether she's researching internships at the Becker Career Center or throwing herself into volleyball, a sport she'd never before played.
“Union is a great school, with a tight-knit feeling,” she says, noting it's half the size of her alma mater, Brooklyn Technical High School. “Here, it's easy to get 1-on-1 attention, whatever your issues are.”
In Gomel, Dubodel studied art, piano, gymnastics, ballet, and ballroom and traditional Belarusian dancing. Many of her classes were at the Palace of the Pioneers in the local park, a city unto itself, “like Central Park, only with castles.” When she was 11, her family moved to New York.
Dubodel has gotten good at shuttling between different worlds and finding her own niche.
She's studying sociology, French and freshman preceptorial this term. In the fall, she kept busy at her job in the Yulman Theatre as part of the costume crew for A Midsummer Night's Dream.
She loves Minerva life at Wold House, dorm living at West College. She recently bought a Japanese fighting fish for her room, named Bartleby, after Melville's novella, Bartleby, the Scrivener. In addition to campus life, she's exploring “a lot of Schenectady's lovely Greek Orthodox churches.”
On breaks, this self-described bookworm tries to tackle her collection of Gogol (“I miss reading in Russian”). And she's excited about her decision to be an art history major; art, English and biology were all possibilities for the young woman who seems to find joy in every experience.
Overarching everything, there's the excitement of being a Henle Scholar.
“When I found out, I did a little dance, a happy dance, a victory dance,” she says.