Eve Markvardt '13
Major/Year of Graduation: Anthropology, 2013
Home region/country: Born in Kaluga, Russia, and raised in Finland (high school in Helsinki)
Previous Education: United World College (2007-2009)
Clubs/Organizations on Campus: Davis Scholar, Community Advisor of Deroy in Massell Quad
“I think it’s very important to be self aware, and understand why you act the way you act. I think if people would stop often and think, they would continue with a different vision.”
From Russia, to Finland, to Canada, and finally to the USA, Eve Markvardt has found the freedom to be who she wants to be and her passion in the field of anthropology. Exposed to the subject in high school, she says “I took anthropology as an IB subject, and I just fell in love with it, because I think it reflects so many questions I have about the world, and just trying to understand different people, how they interact, and how they don’t understand each other and why they will never understand each other.”
Anthropology seems to have been a part of her life from a very early on, having moved from Russia to Finland at the age of ten, bringing an exposure to very different cultures and the difficulties that lie in navigating between them. She embraces this identity, saying “myself, I think I identify almost as both,” explaining, “my family’s very Russian…but at the same time, my schooling was mostly in Finland, over the conscious years of my life after I was ten.”
Continuing from this multicultural beginning, during high school Eve applied to the United World College, and in 2007 moved to Vancouver Island, Canada. “I think it’s great to be exposed to different communities. That’s something I experienced at the UWC,” she says. “In my first year my roommates were from Malaysia, Argentina, Canada, and Aruba, and then I roomed with someone from Brazil, so you get exposed to so many different viewpoints.”
Eve in Helsinki Senate Square in 2009
Describing herself as “a very reflective person,” she depicts living in Canada and the US as being marked by a sense of liberation. She explains, “when I arrived in Canada I got this huge feeling of freedom, and it still continues when I am here. It’s freedom to be whoever you want to be; because when I was in Finland I was always the Russian, and when I go to Russia I am always the Finnish girl, so I never really am the thing in the place I am.” She thinks about her identity, and actions, a great deal; as she explains, “I think it’s very important to be self aware, and understand why you act the way you act. I think if people would stop often and think, they would continue with a different vision.”
What really comes through about Eve is her incredible open-mindedness and optimism. Seeing the best in everything, she describes first coming to Brandeis: “being at Brandeis felt very not diverse at first. It was like, whoa, everyone is American; and even though Brandeis says it has such a big percentage of international students, it felt like nothing to me. But you do find a different kind of diversity, the more you stay here and the more you interact with people, and I think I really enjoy that.” Smiling and open, she looks forward to the future with hope and excitement, bringing an anthropological perspective with her.
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