2026 Graduate Profile: Anna Kharzhevskaia
Anna Kharzhevskaia's path to North Seattle College began in a 15-mile traffic jam at the border between Russia and Kazakhstan in September 2022. Anna was in a car with her husband and their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, stuck for several days with no plan for where they were going — only the certainty that staying was not an option. They departed Russia during the military mobilization related to the war in Ukraine, not knowing what would come next.
From Kazakhstan, where the family spent time after crossing the border, they later lived in France and spent time in Brazil preparing their U.S. immigration documents, before finally arriving in Seattle at the end of December 2022. It was Anna's first time in the United States. She enrolled at North Seattle College in spring 2023, starting as many immigrants do, in English as a Second Language (ESL).
"When I came here, I didn't have the language yet," she says. "I started at North Seattle College because that's where I could begin. And I never really left."
What followed was nothing short of remarkable. Over the next three years, Anna completed a Project Management Certificate (Spring 2025), an Associate of Applied Science-Transfer in General Business (Fall 2025), and is now completing her Bachelor of Applied Science in International Business, maintaining a 4.0 GPA across all three programs, all while working. Anna first worked at Seattle Colleges and then as an Education Program Manager at Binaytara, a nonprofit focused on reducing cancer-care disparities, while simultaneously raising her daughter, who has spent three years in the NSC childcare center and is heading to kindergarten in September 2026.
“She is also a North Seattle College student," Anna says with a laugh. “Just a smaller one."
Anna is not the only family member whose path runs through NSC. Anna's husband Dmitry completed an Associate in Computer Science degree in Direct Transfer Agreement/Major Related Programs at NSC (Summer 2025) and successfully transferred to the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington (Seattle), where he will complete a bachelor's degree next year.
Anna’s time at NSC has been marked by a commitment that goes well beyond the classroom. She represented Washington state colleges on a study abroad program to Vietnam, where she gained firsthand exposure to global supply chains, manufacturing processes, and international trade. She volunteered as a tax preparer with United Way of King County, served as Academic and Rising Leaders Outreach Project Manager for the Puget Sound Project Management Institute chapter, and initiated the communication that later helped establish the first PMI student chapter at NSC.
As an NSC student, she was part of the winning team at the University of Washington Foster School Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship's Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership (WE Lead) Business Solution Competition in February 2025. She also advanced to the finals of the University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management's Global Scaling Challenge, representing NSC on a national stage.
In March 2025, while balancing all of this, Anna returned to Russia to defend her PhD in Pedagogical Sciences before a committee of 22 members — a dissertation about preadaptation and adaptation to uncertainty.
"My whole life has been a case study in my own research topic," says Anna.
Anna holds a PhD in Pedagogical Sciences with a double specialization in Theory and Methods of Teaching and Education and Educational Psychology, Psychodiagnostics of Digital Learning Environments.
Anna currently serves as Education Program Manager at Binaytara, where she manages accredited Continuing Medical Education programs and leads the development of a game-based oncology learning platform.
Looking ahead, Anna has been accepted to the University of Washington Foster School of Business Executive MBA program. Her goal is to move into business and program management roles at larger organizations, bridging her extensive background in global education with the American corporate environment she has spent three years learning to navigate.
From left: Claire Peinado, Vice President of Student Services; Dr. Rachel Solemsaas, NSC President, Anna Kharzhevskaia, NSC graduate and her daughter.
At this year’s NSC Student Awards ceremony, Anna received the President’s Medal for maintaining a 4.0 grade-point average.
NSC gave Anna more than credentials. The instructors, advisors, and colleagues she met along the way became part of her story — people who supported her growth, challenged her thinking, and made her feel like she belonged.
"What this college gave me is hard to put into words," says Anna. "I came here not knowing the language, and I leave with a degree, a professional network, a new career, and a clearer sense of who I am."