Lydia, who grew up in the small Alaska town of Haines, had a very un-Alaskan experience during spring break 2023.

Quiet words in Japanese helped Mina find her way to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

A collegiate chess club from Alaska has one advantage: Teams from elsewhere don’t know what’s coming at them.

As Moody sat in a UAF coffee shop, they noticed — for the first time — the campus radio station playing on the café speakers. Suddenly, they had an idea.

Jaiden, who grew up in Fairbanks, has “never seen a real beach before.” But even though she pondered Hawaii for college, she didn’t feel the need to escape her hometown.

Just days after his discharge from the Navy in June 2021, River was in Alaska, following up on his interest in visiting the state. He thought he would try out college for a semester.

A sawed-off 6-foot bow section of a concrete canoe stands upright in a Duckering Building hall, part of a display about engineering at UAF. Look closely, and you’ll see a subtle image of a harpoon pressed into the boat’s floor.

Kyle Agustines sold shoes after high school — enough of them that at 18, as a store manager, he earned a five-day business trip to five-star hotel in Nashville. But he wanted to go to college.

When a housing mix-up canceled Riley von Borstel’s plans to attend college in Hawaii, she quickly regrouped and headed to UAF. She knew a bit about the place.

James Miller is in the Student Recreation Center six days a week. “I know the employees there and have a good relationship with them,” he said.

When Don Sumic graduated from high school in Waikoloa, on Hawaii’s Big Island, he saw many of his classmates headed in one direction.

Jenna Hernandez had a key job in UAF’s student steel bridge competition this past winter: backup parts runner.

Elmore, an undergraduate in ocean science, is investigating the sources of mercury in Alaska’s Kachemak Bay. 

James Isabell had to rethink his life after an all-terrain vehicle crash crushed his leg. He couldn’t walk for nine months.

Jenessa Oviok’s nephew was born with a hole in his heart. Watching him face that challenge, while she wasn’t able to help, helped her decide on a career. “That’s why I want to be a doctor,” she said.

Even as a child growing up on the Pacific coast, David Harvey wanted to be a volcanologist.

Benny Acquah remembers the trouble people sometimes had obtaining clean water in her home city of Koforidua, Ghana. So she decided she would study environmental engineering at UAF and someday help solve such problems.

Kevin Huo came to UAF from California but, far from hibernating in the frozen North, he has used this place to launch himself around the world.

Kahryn Buchanan didn’t like math until she started taking a college-level course. At age 13.

A teacher from Buffalo, New York, helped Kevin Grimes find direction, just by reaching out at a tough moment.

Two unique features have marked life at UAF since its earliest days, and Grace Miller has embraced both. She skis on the cross-country team, and, like many students, she lives in a cabin without running water.

Joe Bifelt saw firsthand how a cultural connection could transform school for young people in his home village of Huslia. A dog mushing program started by his late grandfather, legendary racer George Attla, changed his relationship with the high school teachers in his senior year.

Daniel Dykes first got interested in neuroscience as he watched doctors on the fictional TV program “House.” Now he’s studying the topic at UAF and plans to eventually earn both a doctorate and a medical degree.

UAF offered the perfect combination for Haley Castillo: a homeland security bachelor’s degree program, courses in aircraft piloting and a top-ranked rifle team. So the young woman from New Mexico headed north.

Cyan Woodward has been fascinated by geology her whole life. Volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis — “I was interested in learning the mechanisms behind them,” she said.

Michael Martins didn’t know how to play the piano when he first arrived at UAF, but an old out-of-tune instrument in Bartlett Hall intrigued him. Things snowballed from there.

Like other painters, Ruth Nashookpuk uses canvas as a foundation. But when she’s done, Nashookpuk can lace up her work and apply it to her other passion: basketball.

Isabel Castro sat in her car in Kodiak two years ago, interviewing over her cell phone for a job with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “My phone was about to die, and I have to take my brother to the pool, and I’m stressed,” she remembered.

Chelsea Brown went straight from high school in Georgia to a 35,000-student university nearby. However, the U.S. Army transferred her mother to Fairbanks a few years later, prompting Brown to follow and enroll at UAF.

Cody Newman studies petroleum engineering and trains as a ROTC cadet. So why did summer 2017 find him fighting wildfires in Alaska and the Lower 48?

John Oulton bought a car last summer. The 2008 Chevy Cobalt isn’t big or fancy. Car and Driver magazine described it that year as “an acceptable choice as a transportation appliance.”