Notes About My Educational Background
and Teaching Work
Before graduating with this BA, I was entering Kharkov University (Ukraine) at the age of 17 (after my high school). It was in different republic (Soviet Union times) and I did not follow with that.
Then, I actually entered and studied for about a year in the BA program “Librarian” in Latvia State University. It is much like Russian philology in the first year. I left that program since it was not exciting enough for me. I was a graduate of a high school with the emphasis in English language and literature.
In a few years, at the age of 22 or 23, I entered English philology and Literature major at Latvia State University, and graduated in 1989. At this time it took me 6 years altogether, since I had taken at first a complete year of the entrance examinations preparatory course. There was a competition to get into the program.
Master’s degree:
At first I was studying for 2 years in CSUF (Fullerton University) in California (started in 1998). Then I transferred to CSUB (San Bernardino) because of the major. My majors in CSUF were at first Administration of Education, then Family and Marriage Counseling. After two years in CSUF I found “Counseling for Community Colleges” (Master’s) major in San Bernardino University, and so I transferred there while working for Victor Valley Community College as an ESL Adjunct faculty.
At the end of this Master’s I had an internship through Counseling Department at ESL Department with students of ESL at Mount San Antonio Community College.
I also taught ESL and Russian at Mt SAC in those years. (ESL – for a couple of years and Russian – for 8 years on Saturdays at Community Education Department. I passed a job interview with the Director of the Department).
After I finished this Master’s at CSUSB (California State University of San Bernardino) in June 2002, I started taking college Spanish credit classes right away.
I took Spanish for 9 years – in community colleges, face-to–face and online classes, and also a few classes at CSUF (California State University Fullerton), like 400 level classes (Crítica Literaria, etc.)
After all those classes of Spanish, I, naturally, wanted to finish it with a degree in Spanish, but I was not lucky: in that year they said to me that they did not allow the second Bachelor Degree. I remember, I went for advising to CalState Poly to their Spanish Department (Pomona, California). Then, at that point, I was taking a few classes in Spanish major at CSUF, and there was a confusion with majors, and then I stopped seeing the point in my efforts. I was always working two teaching jobs at that time, paying for my education right away. I taught morning classes here, and evening classes there. I also was teaching one semester Adjunct ESL at Rio Hondo Community College, where I passed a job interview.
And why am I writing here all of this?
Just to explain that It is not just what we see in two diplomas. It is a lot of studies and teaching work around that and beyond that. I took only university classes for about 12 years plus languages – Spanish and French in University and community colleges.
Well, French was my 2nd foreign language from my BA from LSU – the diploma you see in this video.
In the last three years I have been taking German language credit classes from Arizona community colleges. I also took some German in the distant past – we were exchanging English for German with one teacher of German – before USA. In one of my UTube channels you hear me teaching beginning Arabic – explaining in Russian for Russian listeners. I was studying it by myself, in California, for a year. We can see the dates on my posts. Sometimes, as time passes, I may forget when and what happened, so then I go to my own video posts, and it’s all there.
The purpose of these notes is to give more details about my educational and teaching background, and also for identifying purposes – these two university diplomas show my maiden name and my patronymic, and my Master’s diploma shows my Burkhart last name that is the last name of my marriage of 1995 to 2006.
I came to California, USA, in May 1995, and I married M. Burkhart in June 1995. And all of this is described in my first book (in Russian language) “The Girl from California” ‘ which you can see here on the page Books for Sale, or Zoia’s Books.
I recently had to do a lot of documents for my personal identification in order to transfer just a few dollars of royalties from a Russian publisher (Russian Federation) to USA, where I live.
I almost spent more money in the process than actually my royalties were for my Russian books. However, I saw that it is actually possible to do it – to transfer royalties from Russian Federation through Yandex and to USA.
If anybody ever needs to know about my identity and who I am, they need just to look into my over 1000 videos (UTube ”zoiacalifornia”), a few blogs, my website(s), the Google records, my books at Amazon/Kindle and Barnes and Noble (over 24), and for a few minutes all the curious researchers will find more information on my identity than they asked for.
It may take longer for me to find my own information in my own home files, than to find it right here – on internet.
And the talent of writing briefly has never been one of my strengths! Not that I ever required it in my teaching profession, or my writing or translator’s occupation.
As an educator and a self-published writer with such saturated background, I do not need the talent of writing briefly.
Brief letters do not get results.
The long ones – do.
It was proven by me – to me – just yesterday, and many times before that.
I appreciate everybody, who visits my channels, platforms, and reads my quite lengthy notes. And no, I do not use Grammarly. Grammarly is only English, anyway! 🙂 Why bother? 🙂
Zoia Eliseyeva
October 23, 2020 from CA, USA