>> Everywhere you turn, people try to tell you who to be and what to do.

But what about deciding for yourself?

Roadtrip Nation is a movement, that empowers people to define their own roads in life.

This year, we brought together three students from the state of Hawaii.

Together, they explore the Hawaiian islands, interviewing inspiring individuals from all walks of life.

They hit the road in search of wisdom and guidance, to find out what it actually takes to create a life around doing what you love.

This is what they found.

Roadtrip Nation presents, Setting Course.

[MUSIC] >> Aloha, my name is Kea.

>> I'm Tehani.

>> My name's Traven Apiki >> Me and my two other companions are going to be travelling the islands Hawaii, Maui and O'ahu.

>> Typically, a road trip nation trip is, three people traveling in a RV across all the states.

Their in a giant green RV, but obviously we can't bring a giant green RV over here on the island.

So, we are gonna be driving in Jeeps, and staying at different houses all across the islands, and camping.

Hopefully, I think we're gonna get the exact same bonding experience that everybody else would get on the road trip.

Basically three local kids just kinda driving around and meeting, different people.

>> Everyone that we have on our list has some sort of epic job.

>> Most of them are local, people who pursue careers in.

>> Science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics.

>> Who combine that with Hawaiian culture, and hopefully can inspire us.

I'm really stoked.

[MUSIC] Okay, I'm Tehani.

I've been born and raised in Haleiwa, on the north shore of Oahu.

I grew up in like this community that everybody basically knows each other.

And having kind of a huge family in this whole community.

Hi, Grandpa!

[LAUGH] I'll talk to you later.

>> I'll talk to you later.

We're in very much a surfing town.

The way people think is that you're gonna become a professional surfer.

Or on the opposite side, you are gonna go work construction, or work for Pearl Harbor, or work for the different bigger industries that we have here.

You know, for a while I thought I was gonna be a surfer.

I was like doing contests, I was doing good, I was traveling and then I realized that I didn't enjoy competing, and I realized that that's not really what I want to do.

[MUSIC] My senior year of high school, I actually spontaneously applied for this cool maritime program.

We learned sailing, and how to traditionally navigate.

And things about ourselves and different cultural protocols.

So like doing different chants when you go to certain places.

Was like connecting with my language, my practices, the sailing, everything was just all coming together.

[MUSIC] I love the water, and I love nature, and I love my small town.

And I realize that, this is exactly what I want to protect.

This fire started erupting in me.

And so that, really fueled me up to go into Biology.

So as of right now I attend Whitman college, and I am a Biology and Environmental studies major.

And, I started volunteering at Lokea Fish Pond.

So, right now we are at Lokea Fish Pond.

What we do are a lot of education programs, and also getting the fish pond back together and running so eventually we can feed our community and take care of one another.

[MUSIC] We're kind of doing the same things that my ancestors have been doing forever.

I'm kind of in this weird state where, when I graduate, what am I gonna do?

Am I going to the Grad School?

Am I going to a law school?

Am I just gonna work?

I wanna come home, and sustainably care for Hawaii.

But, I have been having this struggle with figuring out how to apply my degree to my community and back home.

Like they always joke around, we're just waiting for you to come back from college, so you can help out.

They're like, you're gonna be a lawyer, you're the one who's gonna come home and help all of us.

It's kind of a lot of pressure.

I have been juggling law school and grad school and conservation and all this stuff, but I feel like I'm not qualified enough to go to law school.

Hopefully, this whole experience will just help me figure out what I wanna do afterwards.

Or maybe not making a stress about it afterwards.

Kinda just figure out a path, choose a path, because I think this is the time for me to, figure it out.

[MUSIC] [SOUND] [MUSIC] I actually got to see the jeep first, which was really cool.

So can I guess what color it is?

Is it green?

>> [LAUGH] >> It's okay if it's not green.

There it is.

That's cute, you guys put the little tire cover?

That's cute.

[SOUND] [MUSIC] And then from there I drove to get Traven.

[SOUND] >> We're waiting for Tehani right now.

She's on her way.

Are they coming from, which way?

Okay, so my name's Traven Apiki.

I live here in Hilo, Hawaii.

I'm on track to graduate next spring and I wanna find something, hopefully an education.

I really don't know, it's something I need to think about.

Talking with some of my friends that have just graduated, they have no clue what they're doing.

They have tried to come up with plans and it hasn't worked, I really want to focus on environmental science because Hawaiian culture as a whole, everything was about the environment.

Importance of ecosystems in general.

The importance of our natural resources.

So down in Kau, one of the many districts on the island, there's an ahupuaa or land division called Hialeah and in that ahupuaa is a place that my family comes from.

So my great-great grandpa's stove So above ground cooking area was right here.

But a lot of those rocks have been taken down there from a lot of people that have kind of destroyed some of the archeological sites.

This was my great, great grandpa's old hale and he lived here from when he was born all the way up until 1919.

Knowing where you come from, I think that's important.

It's something that anchors us.

I didn't get here without the help from other people, my kupuna, my ancestors.

Being able to walk through the same places that generations ago, your great, great, great, great greats, they walked through.

It's kind of humbling knowing that this is where at one point your family was, and here you are again walking that same path that they did.

[MUSIC] I feel like there are a lot of kids that don't reach their full potential and they see being on the island as a setback.

[MUSIC] I don't really know what I want to do.

And it's kind of a scary experience.

And by doing this road trip across the islands, it'll really help us, all of us, to realize it's not like that.

The dog's just gonna stand there.

>> Your destination is on the right.

>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> Your dog, no is it good, is the dog gone?

I hope so.

Okay good.

[LAUGH].

>> From there we went to go pick up Kea.

>> It was like, super dramatic.

I was waiting on the side, sitting with my backpack and whatever, and I was like, okay.

I know they're coming, but it just doesn't feel real yet.

I recently graduated from the school's Hawaii campus.

Just coming out of high school and getting into the groove of things.

>> Kea is short.

[LAUGH] But she's a super nice person and she's really smart.

One of the smartest people that I know, because she took, how many AP classes?

>> All of them.

>> How many PE glasses did you take?

>> Five.

>> [LAUGH] >> This right here is my dad, my family, we come from commercial fishermen.

They fish, I don't.

My family wasn't really into technology, but I'm hoping to go into computer science.

I just did my best, did all my grades, worked really hard in school and now I go to Hawaii Community College.

If I do go into computer science, there's so many different kinds of things that I have to take.

I have to be able to pass calculus one, calculus two and a lot of people just want to stop at precalc.

And then there's all these types of computer programs, coding.

I was kind of thinking about dropping one of my classes.

It's just the transition mostly, it's like you're in a new setting, you have different teachers who expect different things out of you.

This has just been my first semester and I've already I've gotten a lot of hard hits.

In Hawaii, I've noticed that it's not very common for people my age to be in more technical pathways.

One of my biggest fears is that I will not be able to complete when I'm trying to start.

[MUSIC] Okay, running is a lot like school.

Because it takes a lot of mental stamina.

Nobody really likes it.

The experience itself is terrible, I hate running with all my life.

It's the worst feeling in the world.

When it comes to running, you need to have a huge amount of both mental stamina and physical stamina, but mostly mental because you're like why, why am I doing it?

What's the purpose?

It's really hard, it's painful, I don't like it.

But the effort that you put into it and being able to build a mental toughness to it.

It's what makes you who you are.

Say it's just getting your degree in college or running a marathon.

[MUSIC] As much as I'm telling you right now that I'm so optimistic and everything, I'm scared that life is gonna happen to me.

Like a lot of people never finish their program because things get in the way.

Things get too expensive.

You get a baby.

Something happens.

And I'm a little nervous for those things to just overpower me and overwhelm me in the future.

There's a little part of me that's like, you could just faint right now, just faint, fall on the ground, just stay there until somebody picks you up, you're done.

But then there's another part of me that's like, what about all the people at the finish line?

There's people there that are waiting for me, like my mom, my dad, they're waiting for me at the end.

[MUSIC] I need to be able to finish, I need to show them that I can do it.

Do it, sprint, get it all out, finish.

That's what I'm telling myself in my head.

[MUSIC] I want to meet people who I can look up to as a role model.

Like how did they get where they are?

How did you manage to have a family life and get where you are?

I really want other people to kind of show me what their life is like and maybe I can get a feel for what my life will be like.

I just want to be able to love what I do, be happy with it.

>> Hi.

I really like the tire thing at the back.

I mean, I know that we couldn't get a green Jeep or anything, but that was a cool second.

>> So right now, day one of the trip, it was actually the >> The first time we're all together.

[MUSIC] Hawaiian custom is when you go to somebody's house or interview somebody or take up their time you give a [FOREIGN] which is a gift.

And so in this case we're giving a lei to each of the people that we're interviewing just to say thank you so much for giving your time.

[MUSIC] We're going to make simple tea leaf leis.

It's very symbolic of good luck and protection and kind of embodies a lot of things.

>> The things that you want to give away to people are things that you should put a lot of love into it.

Just put really good manna into it.

Manna means power in the sense that we're talking about putting our manna into our lei.

We're putting our heart into it.

We're putting all of our good emotions, good feelings.

And that's something we wanna pass onto other people.

[MUSIC] So right now, we actually have our first interview.

>> We will be interviewing Misaki Takabayashi, the interim dean for the College of Arts and Natural Sciences.

She is also putting together a curriculum that incorporates hawaiian culture and science.

>> [LAUGH] >> Mine is the most straight forward, most unobstacled.

>> [LAUGH] >> Most boring pathway, maybe it's because I didn't have the maturity >> Do you even wonder if I was doing the right thing or not, you folks do seem to have that.

This happens to a lot of students, you have to go through a bit of soul searching thing.

[MUSIC] >> Do you believe that you've actually found your true identity?

>> Yes.

>> What was that self defining moment?

>> Okay, I don't think it happens in like ta-da one morning I woke up and knew who I was or anything like that.

It happened to me incrementally and I think you're discovering.

I don't know if I've discovered my entire self identity, because it's a complex thing, right, for everybody.

I was always in sciences and I grew up in Australia.

I'm ethnically Japanese, but I grew up in Australia.

And my best friend, who is a Filipino girl, and I have this joke about ourselves because we were two non-Caucasian students out of 400-500 people, that's when I realized how minority or how non-mainstream I was.

And I realized that I was actually, some of you might be doing this, going to classes at university, leaving a big chunk of me behind our home, stepping into my science classes and thinking I'm a science student like everybody else.

And I was okay, because I knew how to compartmentalize myself into somebody who was Japanese and with all of the Japanese knowledge behind and into somebody who's a science college student of nondenominational, you know, no cultural background.

I had left a chunk of me behind in my journey, right?

So then I had this big task of having to integrate myself, so that I can function as one whole person.

>> How do you do that, because is there a struggle?

Growing up, I had always had it in my mind to do certain things and I started out, in high school, I wanted to do criminology and that was the big thing.

And my family they're like, yeah, go for it, go for it.

And then, it changed a little bit to marine science and environmental science.

And then Hawaiian studies came into the picture.

And that's when that support from family wasn't quite the same, because it was more like why are you wasting your time doing something that's not gonna get you anywhere in life?

Okay, very good question.

Because you don't know exactly how you fit in your universe, in your family's universe, right?

So that's why doing something like Hawaiian studies kind of aligns you a little bit.

Recognizing who you are, where you come from, therefore, what you can do with your life and with your universe.

And so, don't let anybody tell you that you've gotta leave some of yourself behind at home to come to college.

Please bring all of you, all of your ancestors and all of who you are, and then if something doesn't fit right, let yourself explore why that is, right.

What's wrong?

Why am I not feeling comfortable?

Who do I have in me that's bringing up questions or who did I leave behind at home, so that I don't have all of the people in me helping?

Okay, [LAUGH].

>> I thought what she said was really helpful.

I saw myself in what she was saying, as a college student, or how she realized that she left some of herself at home.

I felt like that's how when I was in my science crisis too.

[MUSIC] >> [CROSSTALK] You really do compartmentalize yourself and you only bring certain parts.

And I think like she said when you learn to become one that's when you really figure out who you are.

[MUSIC] So, next day, woke up bright and early.

We got to interview Dennis Gonsalves.

>> Okay, a little bit about Dennis Gonsalves.

He was born and raised on a sugarcane plantation.

His expertise is in plant viruses and a lot of people say that you would see nothing but dead papaya trees because the ring spot virus actually took over all the crops.

And I guess what Dennis did was he actually created a GMO papaya and that's what ended up saving all the crops.

Yeah, he's honestly a really cool guy, I can't believe he's 70 something years old now and still going.

>> Aloha.

>> Hi, hi.

So I was raised on a sugar plantation and I'm the only one in my family that ever went to college.

People did not expect much of me, but in the end, I tell you in the end, it's just like golfing or whatever.

They don't care how good your swing is.

In the end, [MUSIC] What'd you score?

[MUSIC] One day, I'm visiting the University of Hawaii, and the Dean of the College of Agriculture, he says, hey, Dennis, there's this virus disease right here of papaya.

All of pool over 2,000 acres are infected with the virus.

There was no hope, the fields were being destroyed, they were losing their farms.

So we started this project.

Now, the idea was that if we insert part of the virus genome into the papaya cells and regenerate the papaya.

The hypothesis was that, it will make it resistant, so we have a test tube that looks like it could work.

We said no let's see if we can help the industry.

>> Could I ask like I have pride in all of my accomplishments and I mean going out there and creating a GMO papaya, I wonder, like you know, what is your personal definition of success?

>> We were pretty famous doing all this work, but we were just small potato scientists.

I still remember my professors for my masters degree, he said you know, don't be a test of scientist, do something to help people, and I remembered that.

See, our motive was to help the farmers.

I was born and raised in a sugar plantation only 80 miles from here and I know what it is to live in Hawaii.

I know the local thinking, I hope I'd be successful, by not forgetting where I came And I think, you young people, you can compete anywhere, but don't forget where you came from.

And if you can, if you have the opportunity, do something to help people.

Then that's successful to me.

Before you let the camera go >> Carol and I would like to sing a song.

But this song is meaningful, because it's about dreaming.

[MUSIC] >> Okay.

>> We'll put our glasses on.

Now here we go.

[MUSIC] This part is going to be the best part of the interview.

You watch it.

>> [LAUGH] >> Okay, this is Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

And if you look at the words, this is a person dreaming.

It's really a person dreaming, okay?

[MUSIC] ♪Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high♪ ♪And the dreams that you dreamed of Once in a lullaby♪ ♪Somewhere over the rainbow Blue birds fly♪ ♪And the dreams that you dreamed of Dreams really do come true ooh♪ ♪So dream♪ See that's my motto.

>> [LAUGH] >> So dream.

>> Thank you for that.

>>The culture is at the foundation.

The lives of the future generations depends on it.

>> I was exposed to this profession of volcanology.

I fell in love with it.

>> Particularly when you're in college, it's a golden opportunity to be able to go and expose yourself to new ideas, whole new fields.

>> We're heading on over to Maui.

>> Hey a whale!

>> There, there, there, there!

[MUSIC] >> More than ever, I think, the problems that need to be solved now have to be done with a whole new way of thinking.

>> To learn more about how to get involved or to watch interviews from the road, visit ROADTRIPNATION.COM.

[MUSIC]