Graduating College: UAS students share their stories<\/a>]<\/p>\nAlba has been all over the world, but keeps finding herself back in Alaska. She was raised in Ketchikan, but her Filipino roots have been a driving force in her success. She\u2019ll address her classmates at Sunday\u2019s commencement ceremony, and spoke to the Empire about what draws her to traveling, her academic success, her flip phone and more.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve traveled extensively, from Southeast Asia to driving across the United States. Do you have a favorite place you\u2019ve been?<\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s hard to say which place is your favorite when everything is new and exciting. I just like to travel, and I like to be in a place where I don\u2019t know people, just to remind myself \u2014 it sounds a little bad \u2014 but I like traveling because I\u2019m reminded of how insignificant I am. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever felt that, where you\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m not as big of a deal as I think I am.\u201d Nobody knows who I am here, nobody knows what I\u2019ve done, all I am is just some person who\u2019s visiting a place that they live.<\/p>\n
After being all over the world, what keeps bringing you back to Alaska?<\/span><\/p>\nI mean, look at it. Look how beautiful it is today. I was lucky enough to be raised in Southeast Alaska. Growing up, I didn\u2019t like it obviously. I don\u2019t think anybody likes where they grew up. Then I spent some time away and I realized how different a person can be just being from Alaska or Southeast Alaska. Then you miss certain things. You miss the trees, you miss access to the ocean, you miss being able to walk into the woods and not see people for a while.<\/p>\n
I noticed you still have a flip phone. Why is that?<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m poor. (Laughs) There\u2019s that, and also to me, I don\u2019t like what smart phones are doing to society, how it decreases a person\u2019s ability to introduce or have a conversation with a stranger. There\u2019s a part of your brain that gets developed, that is related to your ability to converse, to strike up a conversation or to talk, and that\u2019s a skill. Like anything, if you don\u2019t utilize that, it gets atrophied, so you lose that skill.<\/p>\n
Why do you think you\u2019ve been so successful academically? What\u2019s your secret?<\/span><\/p>\nMy parents are most definitely an inspiration. Sometimes when things are hard, I do think about the sacrifices my parents make. My parents are from the Philippines, and they didn\u2019t get to attend college and they made the sacrifice of wanting to come to another country for the sake of my sisters and I having a better opportunity than what was available for us in the Philippines. My mom didn\u2019t see her parents for 10 years \u2026 what\u2019s sitting in a library for 10 hours having to study compared to not seeing family for years?<\/p>\n
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\u2022 Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com or 523-2271.<\/b><\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
University of Alaska Southeast doesn\u2019t name a valedictorian, but students and faculty nominate students to speak at commencement. Of the four finalists, Chancellor Richard Caulfield chose marine biology major JoMarie Alba. [Graduating College: UAS students share their stories] Alba has been all over the world, but keeps finding herself back in Alaska. She was raised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":13968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13967"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}