Economics Alumna Marlaina Ross is Headed to Indonesia
Marlaina Ross received a BA in Economics with minors in both Business Administration
and German from UAA in May 2017. She is currently pursuing a MA in International Affairs
with a concentration in International Economics at the George Washington University
in Washington, D.C. Marlaina hopes to spend her career researching and implementing
creative solutions to economic development challenges worldwide with a focus on the
Asia region. Next summer, she will be working for Planet Indonesia, an organization
dedicated to environmental conservation through economic development. Marlaina will
be based in West Kalimantan, Indonesia and will be assisting with the restructuring
of PI’s community capital fund, a village level savings and loans program.
Marlaina on choosing economics:
“Studying Economics was something I stumbled upon somewhat by accident, but I truly
believe it was fate as I could not imagine a more fitting field. I started at UAA
as a finance major, and Professor James’s Introduction to Macroeconomic class was
my first real exposure to economics. I was hooked, and felt a passion to learn as
much as I could that I had not yet experienced in my academic career. Economics was
the intersection of more traditional social sciences and quantitative analysis - it
provided a logical way of explaining everything from a currency crisis to the factors
that influence consumer coffee preferences. It was a puzzle that connected the dots
in an otherwise seemingly random world that I found fascinating.
From there, the decision to specialize in international economics and, in particular, economic development was a very natural one. The summer before my senior year at UAA I completed an internship in Shanghai, China, during which time I had the chance to travel to a variety of countries across South East Asia. It became obvious that these regions had enormous potential for economic development, but that there was no one size fits all solution. This sparked my interest identifying the nuances of the economic development challenges faced by each region in order to implement individualized, maximally effective solutions. In many ways, this is a puzzle that will never be completely solved, and I am excited to be pursuing a career in a field that is so constantly evolving and providing new opportunities to challenge myself, learn, and grow.”