Alice Choi: 'I want to make a personal connection with others'

College, for many people, is a time of transformation-learning, taking in new experiences, connecting with people who become mentors and lifelong friends.

A blue 2006 Toyota RAV4, however, played a prominent role in the beginning of Alice Choi's college career at UAA, since she spent much of her first two college years using it to rush her ailing grandparents to the emergency room.

"My aunt suggested buying the car before I started college so I could carry my grandma's wheelchair and oxygen tank," Alice said. "I put my clothes, shoes, snacks, textbooks, laptop, toothbrush and facial cleanser in my car, parked it at the UAA library or Providence and grabbed things I needed as I was going from school to hospital or from hospital to school. My car was a station for me. The hospital usually provided me a recliner so I could sleep next to my grandparents overnight."

Sadness over her grandparents' declining health and their deaths in 2014 and 2015 shadowed Alice's first years at UAA, but her memories of them inspired her to help others grow a healthy lifestyle, guided her toward the bachelor's degree in biological sciences she'll receive next month (with leadership honors) and motivated her to choose dentistry as her future career. Alice will attend dental school this fall at the Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health.

"Looking over my past, I think I would not have come this far without challenges in my life," she said.

'I tried to do my best'

Alice moved from South Korea to join her aunt and grandparents in Anchorage when she was 16 years old, in 2009.

She attended Anchorage Christian Schools and grew deeply attached to her family here. Her aunt adopted her, and Alice adored her grandparents, Young Choi and Nam Choi. She was especially close to her grandmother.

"My grandmother did her best to live as much as she could," she said. "I tried to do my best and always pray even though it was really hard. If I was lethargic, she would be depressed, too. She wanted to dance, try to be happy."

Gardening had been one of her grandmother's passions, so Alice and her aunt grew a big garden full of lettuce, radishes and zucchini and her grandmother would frequently ask them if they had watered and fertilized it.

"She'd say you have to pick up snails when it's dark and weed when the soil's wet," Alice said. "It made my grandmother happy because she could see the garden from her window."

Cooking and eating were her grandmother's other passions.

"Even though my grandmother couldn't eat much-rice broth, soup, something really soft-her wish was that she wanted to be recovered, be physically active," Alice said. "She told me she wanted new dentures. She didn't have any teeth and her gums had changed shape, but she was too weak" to go through the process of having impressions made of her gums.

Alice's grandfather also felt teeth were important. He had only five teeth but used three toothbrushes to care for them, brushing with toothpaste in the morning, baking soda in the afternoon and salt in the evening.

"He always took care of his dentures," Alice said. "I would help him. I could see the special care my grandparents had for their teeth."

'A walking hospital'

Alice's life as a teenager was radically different from most teenagers'.

"Rather than going to the movies, malls and restaurants with my friends, I used to go to the senior center, pharmacies, clinics and hospitals with my grandparents," she said. "I did not enjoy my life, staying up at nights in hospitals, calling insurance companies, pharmacies and doctors' offices constantly and skipping classes due to my grandparents' medical emergencies. I sometimes laid in bed crying because of my grandpa's aggressive and violent behaviors toward me, because of his progressive dementia."

After graduating from high school, Alice decided to stay in Anchorage and attend college at UAA because her grandparents and aunt needed her help more than ever: her grandmother's asthma and diabetes had worsened and her grandfather suffered from heart disease, diabetes and bladder cancer, in addition to his dementia. They needed her to convey to them, in Korean, what their doctors and nurses were trying to tell them.

"People called my grandparents a walking hospital," she said. "I'd study at a small desk by my grandmother's bed and pat her back while I was studying notes. I just loved to talk with her about what I learned."

A doctor, back in 2011, had estimated her grandmother would live six months. She clung to life for three years, until her death on Nov. 6, 2014.

"And afterward my grandfather became so ill," Alice said. "He was more than likely depressed. I cried a lot because he had dementia, and he kept telling me, 'I'll be gone soon, you should be prepared.' On July 4, 2015, he became independent-free of his body and sickness."

'I wanted to be significant to others'

Back in ninth grade, Alice almost failed biology.

"I didn't have good English skills," she explained. "I'm so glad I retook it" at UAA. That biology class awakened her interest in science and becoming a dentist. She and her friends helped create the UAA Multicultural Community Wellness and UAA Pre-Dental clubs. She also volunteered at the Alaska Mission of Mercy, an event that provides free dental care to Alaska residents who otherwise could not afford or access it.

"Like the dentists and volunteers, I wanted to be significant to others-not by becoming better than them, but my putting them before myself," she wrote.

Immersing herself in campus life helped relieve Alice's overwhelming grief and satisfied her need to connect with others.

Alice took yoga, delved into the UAA Emerging Leaders Program, worked as a student assistant in the University Honors College and involved herself in the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry.

Alice also played violin in the UAA Sinfonia orchestra, and will perform Bach and Mozart music at a student recital April 15. She has loved playing piano since she began taking lessons in Korea at the age of 7 and on many of those days waiting for her grandparents to be treated in the hospital, Alice ventured up to the fifth floor lounge at Providence to play the piano there.

"I wanted to be part of school, be social," she said. "And playing the violin and piano really helped me develop my dexterity to use in dental school as well. In high school I wasn't involved. At UAA, at college, I had another chance."

In 2015, a panel of UAA faculty and staff selected Alice to be the 2015 AHAINA Woman of Excellence, at a ceremony the UAA Multicultural Center hosted. She also spoke at UAA's 2015 Convocation, and received a bevy of other honors.

Her parents will travel from South Korea to see Alice graduate. She knows her grandparents will be watching as well.

"I appreciate my grandparents' lessons I can apply in my life," she said. "It's sometimes hard at the end of the day. I try to talk to my grandparents-my day was like this, I have trouble, these are my worries. I know it's weird because they're in heaven, but I always feel better after I try to talk to them."

Written by Tracy Kalytiak, UAA Office of University Advancement