>>Narrator: How do I know which path is best for me?

Is it possible to take on these challenges and obstacles?

Where do I even start?

What should I do with my life?

Sometimes, the only way to find out is to go see what's possible Since 2001, we've been sharing the stories of people who ventured out and explored different career paths and different possibilities for their futures.

This is one of those stories.

This is Roadtrip Nation.

>> Saddie: Good morning.

>> Maddie: Good morning.

[MUSIC] >> Maddie: We are going through Indiana, starting down south and working our way up north.

>> Daniel: Interviewing various leaders from various career industries.

>> Saddie: To explore what Indiana has to offer whether it's careers or just leaders to help us figure out where we want to go in life.

>> Daniel: I want to go on this road trip to see what other places in Indiana are like and learn from the leaders there, learn from the community and get to try some new things as well.

>> Maddie: One of the most pressing points of pressure is what are you gonna do next?

What comes after college?

I really don't know.

>> Saddie: I've just been so stuck in figuring out what direction I want to go in, and I'd really like to just find an answer to how to start and exploring what the possibilities can be.

[MUSIC] >> Daniel: Need help?

>> Saddie: I got it.

[LAUGH] >> Daniel: Most likely to help people before they need it, I relate to that.

>> Saddie: I love all the stickers, so much fun.

>> Maddie: I'm honestly so excited about doing this trip in an RV.

Hi everyone, how's it going?

Some point in life, I'd love to live in a van and do van life.

So I feel like living in an RV is kind of that first step on that road.

[MUSIC] >> Maddie: My name is Maddie Milharcic.

I am from Avon, Indiana, which is 20 minutes west of Indianapolis.

My parents chose to homeschool me and my siblings.

I have a twin sister and a younger brother.

I know that homeschool isn't really the traditional way of education, but it worked really well for our family.

Right now in life, I am a junior at Purdue University.

I'm studying agricultural engineering.

A lot of people are asking, what do you wanna do after you graduate, and I'm asking myself that.

So that's one of the things I'm excited to be on this trip for, is to start narrowing that path of, what am I interested in, and where do I see that going?

[MUSIC] >> Maddie: I'm really excited to talk with Dr. Lauren from Hoosier National Forest, where she's working on a pollinator project.

A lot of what I do is ag-focused, but I could also swing more of the conservation side.

So I'm really excited about exploring what does conservation look like with the pollinator project going on in the forest.

>> Lauren: What we're doing is we're actually collecting a known volume.

So we have this ring is actually a muffler, [LAUGH] that we turn into a soil sample so we know how much volume soil would be in here.

And so we measured at different depths through the soil horizon.

Hammer please Then we just hammer this in.

And then we would take this, empty it out into a plastic bag, and that's our soil sampling.

It's hard to know what you wanna do so early on in your life.

I graduated high school with 1.67 GPA, really, really low.

I didn't have a lot of choices on where I could go with a 1.67 GPA.

My mom was disabled when I was around third grade, my stepdad had a lot of medical issues when I was in high school.

We ended up losing our house, our cars, I was kind of on my own.

So I really went back to, I love science and I loved being outside.

What can you do with that?

So it took me nine years to finish my bachelor's degree, I started off in psychology.

I ended up environmental science.

I went to four different universities.

It took me a while to figure out where I was going.

Most of that was just trying to work and pay for school at the same time.

In that sort of journey, I found what was important and meaningful to me and what I wanted to do for my career.

That's something I'm passionate about, and I don't even think of it as like work most of the time because I really get to just be true to myself.

And I'm really thankful for my job, [LAUGH] because it was really hard to get here and to stay motivated to really wanna finish my degree.

>> Daniel: So can you tell us a little more about the environment and the wildlife that you're helping here?

>> Lauren: So we're looking here in a log landing, that was part of a research project that we had going on in three national forests.

And what we're really looking at here is how we can create pollinator habitat on these small little parcels that have been highly impacted by our harvesting operations.

And those harvesting operations are really to help promote our native hardwood forests.

And then we did native seeding with a diversity of native plants to provide floral resources, so food, for native bees throughout the growing season cuz plants will flower at different times.

So this is providing a very localized approach to trying to save and promote conservation for different species.

It's also nice being a scientist in a public service role, because I think of myself as like a public servant first and then the scientist next, and it's really providing for the people of Indiana.

Trying to do good as much as we can.

>> Saddie: It's obvious that you really enjoy your job here.

What would you say is one of the most fulfilling parts of it?

>> Lauren: I get to learn so much from the different people that I work with.

They are educated in different realms of natural resources than I am.

It's a very diverse field.

All of us are usually really passionate about the things that we do.

Two, it's feeling like you're having even a little bit of an impact on the greater good, what we're doing in terms of like incremental progress on major conservation issues and that's really helpful.

This landing, it's actually really pretty now.

Right now, there's not a whole lot flowering on it, but we did this.

Like we, It's just a little probably quarter acre area, but we did something, bees are responding.

We see pretty plants and even if it doesn't go beyond this.

It's like we did a little bit of good.

>> Maddie: Lauren has such a beautiful story, and it was amazing to get to talk with her.

She mentioned that it took her nine years to finish her bachelor's degree, and knowing that that's okay.

And it's okay to take your time and figure things out is really inspiring to me, and getting to be out in the field and see what tests they take look like, and talk about real experimental design.

So things I've discussed in the classroom before, but to be there and seeing it and get to look at it and even partake in it a little bit with our soil samples that we took was real, and it was fun and I could do that.

That's something I could continue to pursue, and I'll definitely be spending time looking into that.

[MUSIC] >> Saddie: We're heading to French Lick to do some horse riding.

I'm actually super excited because I've gone horse riding like once before, and it was like for a friend's birthday party like eight years or so ago.

>> Speaker 5: Y'all wanna follow me this way.

We'll go have some fun.

>> Daniel: I am a little afraid to deal with these animals, because horses are a lot bigger than people realize and I don't quite understand them the way I understand other animals, so I don't know how to react when they make noises and they do things.

[MUSIC] >> Speaker 5: Just pull him towards me.

Yeah.

[SOUND] He just wants that close-up, that's all he's working on.

>> Maddie: [LAUGH] It was kind of funny, Daniel's horse kept wanting to stop and pee, which I'm not sure how Daniel responded to that.

Just being first time on a horse and all it wants to do is go to the bathroom, so [LAUGH] that was kind of funny.

>> Daniel: What a moment for camera.

[LAUGH] >> Saddie: I could totally see myself going back or going to another horseback riding area to just hop on and just have a stroll, go about, just have a good little time to your own self and your horse.

It's just a really fun calming experience.

[MUSIC] >> Saddie: I am super excited to see what Indiana is, because I live here, but I've not been around as much.

But also just the people.

I'm super excited to meet people that are either within the areas of my interest, or just to see what other people have experienced.

I think that'll be really interesting and inspiring just to see that you can do it in your home state like Indiana.

[MUSIC] >> Saddie: Harold, you're not ready.

You're not ready.

>> Saddie: My name is Saddie Kendall.

I am from Greentown, Indiana.

It's a small town, Greentown is maybe about 5,000, 6,000 people.

And I went to the same school throughout my entire life, elementary and high school.

I never moved anywhere.

But a small town has not very many opportunities in terms of what is really out there.

I have really lovely scenery, both sides, corn, and corn.

>> Saddie: I just graduated with my art degree, but I had an on-campus job as a computer service technician, and I ended up falling in love with that service technician job.

And so, now I'm really trying to figure out where I want to start my next path.

Do I want to try to combine the two or start somewhere new entirely?

Come on, sit, sit, roll.

Thank you.

[SOUND] [MUSIC] >> Saddie: Today we're gonna go interview Chris Whonsetler, who is a freelance photographer.

I'm actually really excited to interview Chris, because if I want to be a freelance photographer, he is sort of what I'd wanna do, cuz he does all these different projects with lots of different people.

And I'm just really curious on how he built himself up and got started.

Could you tell us a little bit more of how you got into photography?

>> Chris: Yeah, basically, started in middle school.

One of my projects was photography in 4H, and really kind of fell in love with showing the world how I see things.

I like the creation part of photography, like, I love setting up a photo, taking the photo versus the back end, the business stuff.

I'm into the more adventurous side of things, so I like to be active and doing things and seeing new things, versus being stationary.

So like I said, locked behind my computer is not so much fun, but being out on location is.

>> Daniel: What were some of the challenges you faced when you were our age and how did you overcome them?

>> Chris: Doubting yourself is always pretty huge, critiquing yourself is always pretty huge, especially in the creative industry, especially with social media, the way it is.

So you always have to be thinking about next week and next month and next year, what am I doing to keep people calling me?

It's scary, not knowing when your next job is coming.

It's scary if you have an empty week on the calendar with no jobs.

There was a phase of my career where I was kind of done with the freelance thing.

It was was just too stressful, and I was like, I just need a nine to five.

I wish I clocked in at 9 o'clock and I clocked out at 5 o'clock and I didn't think about work at all until 9 o'clock the next day.

That would be very nice, but I think once I started it, I would instantly regret it.

>> Saddie: Yeah, and I imagine, it's a hustle at the beginning, do you have any advice that you think we might be able to benefit from?

>> Chris: If it's truly something you wanna do, just jump in and just do it.

I would strongly recommend shadowing people in your industry, just work with them for the summer.

You could follow a wedding photographer for a summer, you could follow a product photographer for a summer, so finding some personal work for you, it helps you enjoy the work youre doing.

>> Saddie: It feels good to see someone that's from around the area I'm from be successful.

It's reassuring in that aspect as well, to know that it doesn't really matter where you're from, it's how you take what you know and applying it where you want it to be applied.

It was a really cool thing to see his studio and where he worked.

Just talking to another photographer who has been practicing photography, has clients, and I just thought that was really inspiring and it's really cool [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Daniel: My name is Daniel Dabney, my hometown is my hometown is Gary, Indiana.

For the first ten years of my life, it was just my mom and I, just living there because we didn't have too much support from other people.

>> Daniels Mom: Good to see you >> Daniel: So we're at my cousin's house, which technically is a daycare as well, and I grew up here and this was sort of a second home for me growing up.

>> Daniels Mom: I appreciate yo all coming through for me.

When I couldn't feed Daniel, you all fed Daniel, when I couldn't buy shoes, you all bought shoes.

So, you was more than just a daycare, you became family.

>> Daniel: Gary is a community that has had massive flux of negativity since we were the murder capital of the country.

Since that period it's like people just refuse to let go of that and allow anything positive to grow.

There are people like me out there who really want to chase after these opportunities, who want to do big things.

But they're so focused on thinking that this is not something that I can do, that they don't pursue it in a way that they should.

And I want to be that person who can change the narrative and change that mindset.

And inspire other youth who may be going through what I have and have the power to make that change but are entirely too scared to do it.

[MUSIC] >> Daniel: Today we're going to interview Jay Jackson, a senior reporter for the Indianapolis recorder.

And I am very excited about this interview because she is in the exact field that I'm trying to go in, so I can't wait to hear all the insights that she has for me.

[MUSIC] >> Daniel: I don't think I've ever got to talk to someone about journalism in this depth before.

You're helping people in your own way, like, people say that they love the way that you tell stories.

And I hope that at some point people can say that same thing about me when it comes to reporting the stories in Gary, Indiana.

If somebody asked me what I want to be, I would probably give you as an example.

>> Jade: Thank you, I'm glad.

So when I was growing up, mind you, I was born and raised here in Indianapolis, right?

My father would always read the Indianapolis Star, but he always picked up the recorder as well.

And as a kid, I always remember watching him read the newspaper, and I was like, why are you reading?

Ughh.

Like, you know?

Or whenever they would watch the news, I'm like, why are we watching the news?

This is boring, ew.

Like, no, I wanted to watch my little cartoons before I went to school.

But CNN was doing a documentary called Black in America at the time.

And they were gonna be telling stories about Black people to see like a different spectrum of how we are represented had an impact on me.

And that's kind of how I got into news.

That's kind of why I chose it here, because as a journalist, that's like my passion is like making sure that those type of stories get told.

>> Maddie: So Jade, I know you've moved around a lot in your career.

You started out in Indianapolis then went to these different states, and then you're back in Indianapolis reporting.

So, what is it for you, or how does it feel to be back in your hometown doing stories here?

>> Jade: Gosh, you know what's funny is like when I was growing up, I would always say, who wants to live in Indiana?

Like, oh my gosh, I remember growing up and saying I'm gonna get out of here.

I'm gonna leave.

I'm gonna take over the world, right?

And so I did, I left.

But coming back home I didn't realize I needed it at the time that I needed it.

So it's like a full circle moment for me and I'm really glad that I'm actually back home, because now it's like I'm coming back and viewing where I grew up in a different light, in a different way.

So I feel like the opportunities are endless especially for stories here in Indiana.

Being able to tell those stories about how my city or how my state is progressing forward, I'm excited to be home.

>> Maddie: That's so fun to hear.

I know I think sometimes the conversation with people who live in Indiana can go, well how did you end up here because not a lot of people seem to choose Indiana.

So it's neat to hear someone say I'm proud of this State.

>> Jade: Yeah.

>> Daniel: So do you think that journalism is a field that could use more empathy?

Or do you think that that's something that could be compromising to your position?

>> Jade: It's been taught to us for so long that it's compromising.

They even teach that in J School, like you're not the story.

Stay on the side, you don't have to interact in certain ways, but I feel like me being empathetic has actually helped me with my stories and helped me with my career and helps me with my character.

[LAUGH] Because if I'm taught to just only be objective and just I'm a robot, then, I kind of stick with that and I see that I might have lost certain stories because of that approach.

I was at a funeral and my approach for this story was, how can I share the negative side, right?

Of domestic violence, because it was a situation with a woman and her son, and her ex-boyfriend.

I got permission from this family to go to the funeral and cover it.

I cried in the church because it was a mother and a son, but she also had a daughter.

And her daughter was 10 years old.

And all these adults were crying, just like me, like we're crying.

But she was so stoic.

She was just so very, like, okay, this is the reality of my life now.

And afterwards, she came up to me, and she was like, excuse me, Miss Lady.

I wanted to give you a tissue because I saw you crying for my mom, and I just want you to know everything's gonna be okay.

And I was like, aw, that is so sweet, what?

But this is her reality.

She's not gonna be able to have her mom or her brother anymore.

And for me to connect with her in that way led to so much more, right?

So, now all the other adults in the church are like, like, we felt a little uneasy with you being here, but now we feel safe like that you're here.

And we're glad that you're here to tell this story.

We can't wait to watch it.

I feel like we need more empathetic journalists because that's what's wrong with journalism now is because we're so robotic.

We're so just let's get the story.

But we don't realize that like we are the story sometimes.

The people that we're covering are people just like us.

They could be be our moms, our brothers, our sisters, our cousins, and we don't realize like the power that we truly hold.

And with that power, the question is what are you really gonna do with it?

I'm sorry, I was ugly crying.

Y'all were probably like, dang, journalism is so dark.

>> Daniel: No, not at all.

>> Jade: [LAUGH] >> Daniel: One of the big things I wanted to accomplish with this road trip was go out and see different cities within Indiana.

And see what different leaders are doing different companies, different people and bring that information back to Gary so that I can better the community there.

Gary is a city that has been like riddled with generational negativity.

People just want to leave as soon as they can, especially the members of Gen Z like me.

And I want to be that person that can show them that there is more than that.

So I'm wondering, do you have any advice on how to bring that stuff back to the community in a good way.

>> Jade: So you know that saying like crabs in a barrel, right?

>> Daniel: Yeah.

>> Jade: That's like the mentality that you think maybe people in Gary have.

But you have to ask yourself, were the crabs supposed to be in the barrel to begin with?

I think that's the biggest thing, especially when you're talking about our community in particular is.

Are there programs that you can highlight that want to help, that try to help, right?

If not, okay, maybe if you look at the city in general, or just look at some of the leadership that's there.

If you highlight the disparities, then I feel like you have this tangible thing to say there's disparities.

That's the problem what are you gonna do as a city leader, as a community leader, as whoever, to address this problem, right?

Engage the community with, hey, did you know that you are the way you are because of this?

That's all.

[LAUGH] And then that way they can educate themselves on it and just be like, wow.

[MUSIC] >> Jade: Okay, I think that's how you can start to make even the smallest inkling of a difference.

>> Daniel: I really liked our interview with Jade.

She's the first person in the field that I've actually gotten the chance to talk to extensively.

And it was really cool to see that human side of her.

[MUSIC] >> Daniel: Just peek out in the middle of the interview rather than just maintaining that little professional stereotype that we see a lot.

And it shows that I don't have to fit into a box to actually do what they do while also getting a little more insight on how to actually go into the field from where I am now as a Beginner.

>> Saddie: I'm excited to see my own hometown differently.

Southern Indiana has been super cool, but I'm also just excited to go and see what else we're going to see and experience.

And it'll be just interesting to see what's been there that I didn't even realize.

>> Maddie: We are all facing different levels of uncertainty in our life.

A lot of people are asking us what's next or what comes after.

So the chance to experience the rest of Indiana Is something I'm looking forward to.

>>Daniel: I'm really excited for all of us to show off our hometowns.

>>Saddie: You know, southern Indiana has been super cool, but I'm also just excited to go and see what else we're going to see and experience.

>>Maddie: So the chance to experience the rest of Indiana is something I'm looking forward to.

>>Darrian: I've always said somebody is going to do this.

Why can't it be us?

Ken>>: When I was your age, somebody said, You want this shot, you got this shot because you guys are next up.