About Mike Kituralria Ulroan
I am an Indigenous Alaska Native Cup'ik from the village of Chevak, Alaska and a member of the Qissunamiut Tribe.
I grew up in the village of Chevak, Alaska, ~15 miles inland from the western coast of Alaska with a population of about 1,000 people. Growing up, my family spent the school year in the village, and as soon as the river broke free of ice, we spent the entire summer at my family's summer camp to hunt, fish, and gather plants and berries for the winter. After graduating from high school, I moved to Anchorage, AK to pursue a higher education at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where I earned my B.S. in Civil Engineering and M.S. in Engineering Management.
I grew up in the village of Chevak, Alaska, ~15 miles inland from the western coast of Alaska with a population of about 1,000 people. Growing up, my family spent the school year in the village, and as soon as the river broke free of ice, we spent the entire summer at my family's summer camp to hunt, fish, and gather plants and berries for the winter. After graduating from high school, I moved to Anchorage, AK to pursue a higher education at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where I earned my B.S. in Civil Engineering and M.S. in Engineering Management.
MOTIVATION & INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
While pursuing my B.S. in Civil Engineering, I realized very quickly that I was overwhelmingly academically unprepared to pursue a higher education despite graduating at the top of my high school class. I started at the University taking remedial Elementary Algebra (which I failed my first semester after passing Pre-Calculus in high school) and Preparatory English, failed two and a half years of math classes, failed two and a half years of chemistry courses, and it took me eight years to complete a four-year degree.
While pursuing my B.S. degree, I was introduced to the app called 8tracks by a friend, which streamed motivational and inspirational speeches. I became obsessed with listening to all these motivational and inspirational speeches, listening to them while studying, working out, driving, and as soon as I get out of bed. This then turned into saving my favorite motivational and inspirational quotes, printing them out, and hanging them up all over my apartment at the time (I still have quotes hanging in my house today). A year before I graduated, I printed out a quote "I will be the 2014 student commencement speaker", put it in front of my study desk, and read it every single day. A selection committee then heard my proposed speech and selected me to deliver the student commencement speech to a full arena. Since then, I have also delivered multiple keynote speeches at conferences and shared my academic journey to students to inspire the next generation to pursue higher education and achieve their personal goals with my motto "Nothing can stop me from reaching my goals".
Realizing how much these quotes motivated and inspired me to achieve my goals, I decided to create a social media page to share some of my favorite quotes in hopes to inspire at least one person each day to focus on the positive and achieve their goals.
While pursuing my B.S. in Civil Engineering, I realized very quickly that I was overwhelmingly academically unprepared to pursue a higher education despite graduating at the top of my high school class. I started at the University taking remedial Elementary Algebra (which I failed my first semester after passing Pre-Calculus in high school) and Preparatory English, failed two and a half years of math classes, failed two and a half years of chemistry courses, and it took me eight years to complete a four-year degree.
While pursuing my B.S. degree, I was introduced to the app called 8tracks by a friend, which streamed motivational and inspirational speeches. I became obsessed with listening to all these motivational and inspirational speeches, listening to them while studying, working out, driving, and as soon as I get out of bed. This then turned into saving my favorite motivational and inspirational quotes, printing them out, and hanging them up all over my apartment at the time (I still have quotes hanging in my house today). A year before I graduated, I printed out a quote "I will be the 2014 student commencement speaker", put it in front of my study desk, and read it every single day. A selection committee then heard my proposed speech and selected me to deliver the student commencement speech to a full arena. Since then, I have also delivered multiple keynote speeches at conferences and shared my academic journey to students to inspire the next generation to pursue higher education and achieve their personal goals with my motto "Nothing can stop me from reaching my goals".
Realizing how much these quotes motivated and inspired me to achieve my goals, I decided to create a social media page to share some of my favorite quotes in hopes to inspire at least one person each day to focus on the positive and achieve their goals.
MUSIC
One of my earliest memories in my life is being in the hospital in a steel crib, crying because I didn't see my mom at that moment and not being old enough to crawl around. At that moment, a hospital employee came by, put a small piano in my crib, and I was mesmerized by the music playing. Since then, I have always owned a piano and learned to play gospel music from my parents taking me along to the church choir practices. I then learned to read music in middle school during an after-school program, and have continued to improve my piano playing skills since then.
In my village of Chevak, all the students learn to yuraq (Alaska Native dancing and singing) starting in pre-school and every year until high school graduation. I have continued to pass down our cultural tradition of yuraq by learning to cauyaq (drum and sing) in multiple Alaska Native Yup'ik/Cup'ik groups.
With my piano playing, I now play piano renditions of our Cup'ik and Yup'ik gospel songs and our Alaska Native Cup'ik/Yup'ik songs and dances. Multiple albums will soon be released on all music streaming platforms under my artist name "Kituralria".
One of my earliest memories in my life is being in the hospital in a steel crib, crying because I didn't see my mom at that moment and not being old enough to crawl around. At that moment, a hospital employee came by, put a small piano in my crib, and I was mesmerized by the music playing. Since then, I have always owned a piano and learned to play gospel music from my parents taking me along to the church choir practices. I then learned to read music in middle school during an after-school program, and have continued to improve my piano playing skills since then.
In my village of Chevak, all the students learn to yuraq (Alaska Native dancing and singing) starting in pre-school and every year until high school graduation. I have continued to pass down our cultural tradition of yuraq by learning to cauyaq (drum and sing) in multiple Alaska Native Yup'ik/Cup'ik groups.
With my piano playing, I now play piano renditions of our Cup'ik and Yup'ik gospel songs and our Alaska Native Cup'ik/Yup'ik songs and dances. Multiple albums will soon be released on all music streaming platforms under my artist name "Kituralria".