{"id":47456,"date":"2019-05-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-04T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/meet-nick-bursell-uas-student-graduation-speaker\/"},"modified":"2019-05-04T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-04T20:00:00","slug":"meet-nick-bursell-uas-student-graduation-speaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/meet-nick-bursell-uas-student-graduation-speaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Nick Bursell, UAS student graduation speaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior Nick Bursell has done a little bit of everything during his time at the University of Alaska Southeast.<\/p>\n

Beginning the fall of 2017, Bursell, the student speaker at this Sunday’s commencement ceremony at the UAS Recreation Center<\/a>, studied at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, staffed House District 34 in the Alaska Legislature and been elected president of the UAS student government.<\/p>\n

[Meet JoMarie Alba, UAS student graduation speaker<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n

As a senior, Bursell chaired the University of Alaska Coalition of Student Leaders, which meant reporting directly to the Board of Regents on behalf of all three UA student governments.<\/p>\n

The Empire spoke to Bursell over the phone on Friday afternoon about his English degree, being student body president and his plans for the future.<\/p>\n

Juneau Empire:<\/strong> Why do you think UAS was a good fit for you?<\/p>\n

Nick Bursell:<\/strong> I think that the small-community aspect is really special. The community here is very engaged and tight knit and I think that was really helpful for me. At a larger university it’s a lot more difficult to get to know your professors on a personal basis, but here I’ve got my professors’ phone numbers. I can text them if I need something. We can meet up outside of class.<\/p>\n

Empire:<\/strong> Why did you choose to pursue an English degree?<\/p>\n

Bursell:<\/strong> I had been going to school for a while without really making any decisions. I took a beginning creative writing class and it was one of the first times that I felt like class work didn’t feel like class work to me. It felt fun. It felt interesting. I felt like it was something I really cared about. So I stuck with it, and here we are.<\/p>\n

Empire:<\/strong> What were some of the lessons you took away from serving as president of the student government?<\/p>\n

Bursell:<\/strong> I realized how much people really care about what’s going on in governance. Student government on campus is a lot smaller than say the legislature, but even at that level, students care a lot and they show up and they’re always talking. They made me busy and they made me work, which is great. (Laughs) I kind of just did it because I thought it would be neat, but then when I got there, I realized how many people are actually involved and how many people want to have a say about what goes on on campus.<\/p>\n

Empire:<\/strong> Have you formulated any plans for the future?<\/p>\n

Bursell:<\/strong> I would say it’s a work in progress. One thing I’m really interested is writing professionally.<\/p>\n

Empire: <\/strong>What kind of writing?<\/p>\n

Bursell: <\/strong>My dream is to be a screen writer, but really anything I can get my hands on.<\/p>\n

Empire:<\/strong> What are some of your inspirations in the arts?<\/p>\n

Bursell:<\/strong> Mostly film and television. My favorite show is actually this animated series called “Fullmetal Alchemist.” I really like (Quentin) Tarantino films. I really like this thing that Marvel’s doing right now with the Cinematic Universe and the long-term storytelling. Those are some things I would point to.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2022 Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commencement ceremony is Sunday <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":47457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-47456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47456","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\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47456"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=47456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}