Val Alele – Introduction

Hey Mist 5720, my name is Val Alele and I am a fourth year student at the University of Georgia. My current major is Management Information Systems and I recently added a minor in Sport Management during the semester of Summer 2022. My intended graduation date is in the fall of 2023. After graduation, I plan to start my career in some form of technology consulting. Technology has always been a passion of mine since I’ve been in middle school and it just felt like the right move to make a career out of.

I was born in Atlanta, Georgia but I moved to Jonesboro, Georgia months soon after. I attended a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math based middle school named Rex Mill Middle School. In middle school, I truly learned what the life of a tech specialist would look like. I went on multiple field trips that any 13 year old would love to be a part of. My favorite field trip throughout that whole tenure had to be in 8th grade when my school went to Deloitte offices. At the time, I had no clue what Deloitte even was but the reason why it was my favorite was just due to all of the encouraging ways that the company talked about technology in the future and all of the ways that they made work fun while incorporating technology. From that point forward, I knew I wanted to do something with tech.

In high school, I attended a performing arts high school named Martha Ellen Stilwell School of the Arts. In order to enroll in this school, you had to have a talent or fine art. For me, I was in band. I started off playing the saxophone but by the end of my time in high school, I knew how to play eight instruments. The main thing that I took from my high school was just to be creative and be yourself. I had a moment of my life where I was steering away from tech and was looking more into the healthcare field and there was also a point when I was looking into music performance. After talking to my teachers at Stilwell, they encouraged me to take a step back and just weigh the pros and cons of each of my career options, and that’s what I did.

After graduation in high school, I decided to attend Kennesaw State University and major in Exercise Science. For me, KSU wasn’t too difficult initially. I was a college freshman who was only 45 minutes from home so I wasn’t too homesick and I also had a car on campus if I ever wanted to go anywhere or even go back home for a weekend. Kennesaw State was also the place that I will credit for bringing more of my extroverted self out. I believe this was solely due to me being an orientation leader. Never in my life could I have seen myself doing something like orientation. However, one of my friends told me to apply and that’s how I got started. The experience really took me out of my comfort zone and forced me to become a people person and get to know people a lot more than just on a surface level.

After Fall 2020, I decided to transfer to the University of Georgia to start during the semester of Spring 2021. I didn’t leave KSU because I hated it. I just wanted a change at that time and my sister was recruiting me heavily to UGA since she was a soon graduate and wanted to keep her legacy going. This is when I initially changed my major to Management Information Systems. Exercise Science was something that I chose as a college freshman, but MIS was something that I really wanted to do after talking with my friends, family, and other staff members in the department. Since that point, I’ve just been following the coursework that UGA has provided for me and that ultimately led me to this class.

For this class, I don’t have too much that I want to expect. Our first class made me think outside the box and made me think about questions that I’d never thought of before. The main question was “Can entrepreneurship be taught in classrooms?”. While many of my classmates had answers and could back it up with meaningful reasoning, I was more in the middle and understood both sides. I said this to say that I love being challenged mentally with questions like this. Discussion based classes are my favorite and I’m looking forward to more discussions like the previous one moving forward.

As for my interests, there’s so many that I could name but I’ll narrow them down to sports, video games, and music.

I’ve loved sports for as long as I can remember. My two favorites are basketball and soccer. My dad introduced me to soccer when I was five and his favorite team was Chelsea and I’ve just been a fan of them as well.

As for video games, this is all I do in my free time. I got the PS5 on the first day it was released and I waited for all of my friends to catch up and get it to play with me. My main games are 2K, Fifa, and Madden.

Lastly, we have music. Music is my best way to unwind throughout the week. Whenever I’m thinking about something or just want to relax, I play something to match my mood and it always does the job.

I look forward to meeting a lot more of you and learning more about your story that brought you to Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Thank You!