Alumni Spotlight: Mark Williams

B.A. Music Education '13 Hometown: Anchorage, Alaska Fun Fact: Plans to pursue an advanced degree in music therapy

Not many people are as lucky as Mark Williams to find their passion so early in life. For Mark, the light bulb flickered on in middle school when he realized he would pursue a higher education and eventual career in music.

He started playing the bongos at the age of 6, and over the years learned to play the trumpet, baritone, piano and tuba-his main instrument. "I found that music was my own special talent," Mark says.

By the time his senior year of high school rolled around, Mark was busy creating audition tapes and putting in applications to music schools across the country, including UAA. He was accepted into all of them and was even offered a full-ride scholarship to a university in Alabama.

But there was something about his hometown university that felt right to Mark. "All the signs pointed to UAA," he says. It was about the time of his high school graduation that UAA received an anonymous $7 million gift, which established the Seawolf Opportunities Scholarship. He put his name in the hat for the scholarship and was thrilled to learn he was selected as a recipient. "I took it as a sign that this was where I was supposed to be," he says.

The Seawolf Opportunities Scholarship helped Mark tremendously in the pursuit of his education. "I've never taken my scholarship for granted; I feel very supported." He says it's also a great relief knowing that he's not stuck with a huge amount of debt leaving UAA.

Another big selling point for UAA was that Mark knew many of the music instructors long before setting foot on campus as a student. "They're all heavily involved in the local music community," he says.

It was during his four years as a student at UAA that Mark discovered he needed to make it a lifelong goal to share his gift of music with others. "You have to remember that, at the end of the day, you're not here for yourself," Mark says. "You aren't placed on the planet for just you and you alone; someone's going to need your gift and you need to cultivate it so you can give back. My love for music is worthless unless I use it to help people."

He believes his degree in music education from UAA-and plenty of long days and hard work-has prepared him to enroll in graduate school to focus his studies on music therapy. "I want to use my love for music to help people achieve their greatest potential," says Mark.

Mark explains that music therapy is a relatively new career field and very few schools offer it as a degree program. He's currently looking at the University of Miami's Master of Music in Music Therapy with Undergraduate Equivalency, a program designed for students who have completed a bachelor's degree in some area of music.

He'll use his education in music therapy to one day help people regain or develop important life skills, like communication, physical movement, attention, memory, emotional growth and social skills.

In his final year at UAA, Mark took a job as a student manager for UAA's Student Union and Commuter Student Services department, where he instituted an open mic night called "Den Sessions" to gather musicians, artists and entertainers from across campus. "It's amazing the amount of talent that comes out, whether it be through poetry, song or instrument," Mark says. He remembers a guy named Johann with long, curly blonde hair that would take the mic and rap in Persian, and some of the shyest people he's met that could sing better than superstars on TV. "It's fun to use music as a vehicle for something larger than myself," he says.

Mark accepted his Bachelor of Arts degree in music education, with a minor in psychology, at the 2013 UAA Commencement Ceremony this spring. He plans to work this summer to save up some money before embarking on his graduate studies in music therapy.