announcer: 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."

Tawie: My whole life plan just blew up in my face.

I had to drop out for financial reasons.

I felt like stuck in my life.

Dafina: I lived through a lot, but it's like resilience is something you can't show on your resume.

Ronnie: In high school, I'm just like faking it.

Like I don't enjoy what I'm learning so I made the decision like own my education and do this how I wanna do it.

Tawie: I feel like I'm at a crossroads.

Ronnie: I'm looking for answers honestly.

Dafina: Now is my time to kinda like face what it is that I really wanna do in my life.

And the education is important, but education can be reached in many different ways.

Ronnie: Tawie, Dafina, and I are going to be going on a road trip to interview wonderful leaders.

Dafina: I am so excited.

I don't know what to expect.

So, all three of us, we all have in common that we have all taken short term programs.

Tawie: Instead of like going through four years of school, you can do these micro certifications.

They help you get into a field that you want to get into.

Dafina: So, we're going to be speaking with people who have taken these small steps through these programs to change their lives.

Greg: So, I'm a believer that there should be options.

There's no one size fits all when it comes to this.

Trelisa: Short term programs, certificates, I think that's gonna be the shift in education.

Matthew Heartsfield: Finding a program that kind of put me on the path that I really wanted gave me the trajectory to get to where I wanted to be.

The the biggest thing that I've learned from this program and from programs like this is you get to dictate your own path.

Tawie: Hopefully like, you know, by talking to them, I can find inspiration and not be scared to follow a new path.

Dafina: Oh my goodness.

Dafina: Hi Roadtrip Nation, just a little bit about myself.

I am currently a non-traditional college student returning after many years at Miami Dade College in their short-term program.

As an adult now returning back to school, I have some dreams, desires, and goals, but I'm not sure what they were gonna look like once I achieve them.

[excited yell] Tawie: Dafina, what's up?

Dafina: Tawie, nice to see you.

Tawie: I'm from Zimbabwe, Southern Africa.

I came to the USA in 2012 as a college student.

Life caught up with me, became a college dropout, you know, life was tough.

I became homeless for a little bit, but I survived, you know.

As you see, I'm here.

As we all know, we all have a life.

I have a son now, I have a wife, I have bills, so as much as I would want to just like go to school and not work, you know, for someone like me that's not possible.

Dafina: Oh, hey Ronnie.

Ronnie: Hello, hello.

So good to see you.

Dafina: Look how you look so different from on the Tawie: What's up bro?

Ronnie: How you doing, man?

How you doing?

Dafina: on the computer screen.

Ronnie: A lot of my friends and a lot of people around me were really pushing that college route, and for a while I had college in the back of my mind, but in the end, the senior year really--wasn't really for me at the time.

I wasn't ready.

So, I had to go straight into the work field.

Right now, I'm trying to balance two major parts of my life.

One part of my life is being an IT professional, and the other part of my life is my dream to becoming a professional Muay Thai athlete.

Like, how am I gonna balance the IT and Muay Thai and how am I gonna move forward?

Dafina: Oh my goodness.

Oh my gosh.

Ronnie: This is a lot of green.

Ronnie: We are beginning a trip in Costa Mesa, California.

That's where "Roadtrip Nation's" HQ is based at.

[all laughing] Dafina: Official roadtrippers.

Ronnie: We're here, we made it.

Dafina: Yes, we are here.

Tawie: California.

Ronnie: Oh, he got the seat leaning back already.

Dafina: So, this is the beginning stage of the road trip.

Ronnie: Where we're going to start a few interviews here and then we're going to fly back home in our hometowns individually to do some interviews in our hometowns.

After those hometown interviews, we will fly one more time to Seattle for like one last hurrah and finish the trip there.

Dafina: So, we're getting ready to interview Dr.

Trelisa Glazatov.

I'm very excited to talk with her because she designs short term programs for community colleges.

Trelisa: Thank you for inviting me to this conversation.

Dafina: Dr.

Tre, we are so excited to meet you today.

My name is Dafina and I am trying to look for different ways to earn additional experience and try to continue on in my educational journey to see where it takes me.

So, I'm kind of like in that, you know, processing mode.

Yes, and we're on this journey together.

Are you able to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Trelisa: Yes.

Well, I'm Dr.

Trelisa Glazatov.

I'm originally from Detroit, born and raised, and I work in the education industry, but I wasn't too sure of where I was gonna land.

So, instructional design is actually my fifth career.

I started off in the healthcare industry and then I became an entrepreneur for the first time.

And then I thought, "What else is out there?"

Someone said, "You would be a great teacher."

I was like, "Nah, mm-mm."

And it was simply because I did not have a good experience in the education system myself, but I decided to do it because I needed a job.

And while I was doing that, I had a question.

I said, "Who decides what to create for learners?"

An instructional designer was the answer.

Dafina: Yes.

Trelisa: I was like, "Oh, I wanna do that cause I want others to have a better experience than I had."

Ronnie: So, when people are going through that pivot, maybe like switching into like another career, there's a lot of like uncertainty to it.

Like you don't know like what's next.

What advice or like suggestions do you have for people that's like going through that or like have like those like self doubt thoughts in their head?

Trelisa: It's okay to have the self doubts, just don't stay there.

One thing that I did know is that I knew how to hustle.

Whether it was a side job, whether it was working two jobs, I knew how to survive.

I had odd jobs.

I did everything from a baby photographer to I was volunteering, I was doing a whole lot of things, but I was building skills, I was connecting with people, and then I was finding my way.

But all of that came from just making a choice and knowing that it's not permanent, right?

I made a choice to say, "Let's see if this works out because if it don't, I'm gonna have to make a different choice."

[laughs] Dafina: Yeah.

My issue is my resume can't tell who I am [laughs].

Trelisa: Well, that's the shift too, right?

Because sometimes we build the resume based on roles and not your skills.

Take a look at yourself as a whole person.

Oftentimes our work becomes part of our identity, sometimes it becomes the primary one, but you're a whole person.

You probably have some other skills that you haven't tapped into for work, but you've been using it for other stuff.

It's been you as the brother, it's been you as, you know, the artist or the creative.

So, you may have to tap into that other piece of your identity to say, "What are those skills that I have that I wanna put into my work?"

Tawie: You know, I'm not gonna lie, I feel like you guys are talking to me.

Ronnie: Yeah, I was just about to say--I was gonna say like you're talking like directly to me.

Like I'm feeling it.

Tawie: Like I was--I mean, you know, self doubt was killing me, you know, like--I mean, I've been applying for jobs it's been rough right now and, you know, we are doing like short term learning courses, so what's your take on those?

Trelisa: My work over the last five years has always been in short term programs, programs that are specifically geared towards skills that you need now that you can immediately apply.

I think that's gonna be the shift in education.

Degrees are not gonna go away, but what we're hearing from not only industry, but from students is that they need to be able to connect what you're teaching them in the classroom to what they're gonna do on the job.

And I think that's the reframing that's happening right now in education.

So, what you're doing now, all of you, in your short term programs, your certificates, that's the game plan.

You're ahead of the curve because that--what that allows you to do is to find a job and then you can figure out do I need to pivot or do I stay this course?

And if I need to stay this course, let me go get some other certificates and stack them up.

And if I need to pivot, it's not gonna cost me a lot more money.

I still have skills that I can use in the meantime, right, while I figure out what my next step is, right?

So, yes, I'm all for that.

Tawie: Thank you so much for your time.

Ronnie: You definitely planted a few seeds in my head.

Like I got some brainstorming and some planning for me to do.

Trelisa: Then my job is done.

[all laugh] Ronnie: We just wrapped up the interview with Dr.

Tre and there were some moments that it felt like really deep.

Like she was like talking like directly to me.

Dafina: I absolutely--I can relate so much and I love that she was so transparent.

Tawie: Man, I really enjoyed that conversation.

It made me feel like I'm doing the right thing whereby I'm Dafina: Yes.

Tawie: changing my career and, you know, trying to do these micro credentials to excel myself.

So, I feel good, you know.

Yeah, but you know one thing about this experience, what I like is like you get a chance to like ask questions and then listen.

Do you get what I'm saying?

Like, you know, in the outside world like with people, we don't listen.

That's one lesson that I learned.

Like from now on, even in my personal life, I'm gonna start listening.

You know, there's so much game out there, but we gotta listen.

Dafina: It is.

Ronnie: That's so true.

Tawie: You know what I'm saying?

Tawie: How's it going?

Stephanie Feger: Hi nice to meet you, Stephanie Feger.

Stephanie: Here's a question.

What do you think is, you know, kind of the average number of career changes, job changes that somebody has in their lifetime?

Any guesses?

Ronnie: Six, seven, eight?

Stephanie: That's pretty good.

Dafina: Yeah, I was gonna say a minimum of three.

Stephanie: It's 12.

[all wow] That is like national data and I think that is really something that we all need to be paying attention to.

Tawie: You know what, you know she said something crazy?

About people changing careers 12 times in their lifetime?

Dafina: I didn't realize that it was such a normal thing, yeah.

Tawie: Yeah, I felt happy, man 'cause I'm at 3, so I still feel average [laughs].

Dafina: Yeah, you're doing okay Tawie.

Stephanie: There's always new skills that you have to keep developing.

It's really thinking about not just a kind of a one linear model of I need to go to college for four years and that's it and then I'm kind of done and I'm in the workforce.

It's really continuing your education, but making it much more skill based and kind of packaging those credentials.

It's not like one and done, it is a journey.

Dafina: Constantly evolving, constantly learning something new that may take you in a different direction.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah.

Ronnie: One thing that Stephanie highlighted was the--kind of like the shift in education today how it's like not so much about degrees and more focused on the skills.

Getting those skills like certificates and even like work experience and like whatever way you can like I think that's gonna be like the future.

Dafina: Can I ask you guys if we can make up a little handshake just for us?

A power move saying that we're gonna continue learning, continue growing, and continue on this journey together.

Tawie: No, make the sound.

Ronnie: I'm making the sound.

I'll make the sound.

[pshhh sound] I need you too.

Dafina: Is it sound corny?

There we go.

Tawie: Nah, you didn't make the sound.

Dafina: All right, all right.

[pshhh sound] Tawie: Yeah.

Dafina: I mean, we have so much more to see in Seattle and I'm just so happy to be on this journey with you all.

[music] Ronnie: My interest in Muay Thai began shortly after high school.

I have like a gym like five minutes from my house.

I fell in love with it.

It started off like once a week, it turned to two times a week, and now today is like five times a week.

I'm like serious.

Really just trying to like balance that out with like other aspects of my life.

Growing up I kind of felt some pressure because I did pretty well in school so it was like my parents and everyone was looking up to me to be the one to like go to college and like fulfill that path.

I changed a lot in high school.

My whole attitude kind of like--towards school kind of shift.

I was like, "I cannot do this no more.

I'm just like faking it.

Like I don't enjoy what I'm learning."

So, I made the decision, you know, like I gotta take a break.

I got to like own my education and do this how I wanna do it.

I joined a short term learning program called Per Scholas which really helped me kickstart my career into IT.

With their help, I was able to get a job at the YMCA of Greater Boston.

Ronnie: Yo, what's good?

As you can probably tell, I'm currently at work right now.

Ronnie: I knew like if I wanted to take Muay Thai serious at one point in my life I would be traveling to Thailand, so that's what I did.

Being in Thailand just being like a fighter like that was like that like I loved it.

I saw myself like I could do this for the rest of my life every day.

So then like when it was time to go back home, I was like, "Okay, like now I have to like find a 9 to 5 job."

I'm feeling kind of conflicted on like the next steps and like where I can move into my career.

I mean, one big question I have for the leaders we're going to interview is just how are they doing it?

Like how are they able to balance like outside passion because it's not easy.

I'm about to go interview Greg Walton, an IT engineer at MIT.

We both didn't like complete college so like I'm super excited to like learn from his story.

Greg: Ronnie.

Ronnie: How are you doing?

Ronnie: Ronnie, nice to meet you.

You know, we both participated in like a short term learning program.

Do you like push short term learning programs over college or do you like feel like you can balance the two?

Greg: Well, I feel like everybody should have options, right?

Talented people come from every space of the country.

I'm a believer that talent is equally distributed, coming from the background that I came from, the challenges that I've been through to say that I could be an IT support engineer at MIT, to me proves that.

I had to go through some really tough life challenges where unfortunately I ended up landing myself incarcerated.

You know, I guess the young people say life be lifeing.

Like I went through life challenges and Ronnie: Life do be lifeing.

it forced me in a sense to have to really get focused on what did I wanna do with myself.

I had a high school guidance counselor who actually referred me to Year Up United where I started my career and learning the basics of computing.

And those became the kind of the snowball effects of me really kind of rebuilding myself.

So, I'm a believer that there should be options.

As you know, Year Up United was a unique opportunity for me at the time to give me what I needed as a young person in that season of my life that college frankly didn't provide.

Ronnie: I like that.

Outside of IT, I'm also balancing my career in like Muay Thai which is a martial arts.

So, like I traveled to Thailand, I was staying in Thailand for three months and I'm trying to like really trying to balance those two together.

Do you have any suggestions on like how I can maybe like balance like my side passions with like my career in IT?

Greg: I wouldn't think about it from a balance standpoint.

I think you're off and running like great and I wish I at 21 had that sense of doing that.

I think it's really important to understand that, you know, work is work and career is careers, but having a real understanding of like why you're here, what's important to you, what matters, and literally if martial arts in that realm of things or things that you enjoy like feel free to lean into that.

Ronnie: Yeah.

I mean, definitely making the decision to go to Thailand wasn't an easy one like at all.

A few days before my flight to Thailand, like I was about to cancel everything.

Like I was about to say--like I'm like, "This is a lot.

Like I've never traveled, I never lived on my own before.

Like am I even ready for this?"

And ultimately, I ended up just doing it anyways and I don't regret it at all.

Greg: That's what I was gonna ask you.

My question to you would be now knowing that you didn't cancel it, what is it meant for you now knowing that you did it?

Ronnie: I can say it was the greatest experience of my life and also just opened my eyes.

Like just--there's more out there, you know.

Greg: And that's a skill.

Like I'd be thoughtful that so many people have thoughts about different things they wanna do, but don't fully see it all the way through.

And the fact that you were able to do that like that's a skill set of thinking about something, planning it, following through.

Ronnie: Thank you.

I never thought of it as a skill.

That's like a cool like way of thinking of it.

Greg: That's to me a transitional one where you can carry that in your career, your personal life, relationships.

Like all those things are like--it's gold.

Ronnie: So, we just wrapped up the interview with Greg and honestly, like it was phenomenal.

Greg: Thanks, "Roadtrip Nation."

That's a wrap.

Ronnie: My mind is like I'm opening up to like whole new ideas, but as of right now like I still I love fighting.

I wanna like rack up as many fights as I can.

I kind of realized it doesn't have to be one or the other at least right now where I'm at.

It's good to just have them separate, build them both up as much as I can, but ultimately like what makes me happy is important.

Tawie: [speaking Shona].

So, this is like my--this is my native language.

Like tambere means dance for your soldiers.

Just came from the war.

Tawie's wife: He just happens to like that song.

Tawie: He just happens to like that song I don't know why.

I call him my bundle of joy, our bundle of joy.

I'm from Zimbabwe, Southern Africa.

This is me back home, you know, just visiting the countryside.

Man, these are some--these are great memories.

So, this like my dad, that's me.

I came here to study chemistry.

The goal was for me to be a pharmacist.

We started facing some challenges back home for financial reasons, so I had to drop out and my whole life plan just blew up in my face.

That's all I knew.

Get my chemistry degree, go pharmacy school.

Now, I'm like back to point zero, and I pretty much became homeless too because my parents were supporting me financially.

I was sitting in my car, you know, I literally googled how to get into IT.

So, I did the short term learning course.

So, I graduated.

So, I was on top of the world.

So, I was applying for jobs and boom I got hit in the face again, right?

Like the job market is pretty intense.

Yeah, and then boom, you know, you're down again.

That's life, right?

Ups and downs, ups and downs, but it's about how you deal with them.

We're currently struggling a little bit, but, you know, that's why I'm on this journey to kind of figure out where I can take myself.

You know, impostor syndrome kicks in, you know, self doubt.

I'm hoping to talk to some leaders who have gone through what I went through.

That way I can kinda have a road map, you know, on how I can achieve my goals.

So, I interviewed Matthew Heartsfield, an IT manager at a law firm.

He got his certification, the A plus that I have.

Matthew: Hey hey.

Tawie: Hey, my name is Tawie.

You know, looking forward to talking to you today.

Matthew: I knew very early on I wanna do something with computers.

So, going to high school, started learning a little bit of programming worked out, ended up being valedictorian, and then went to college for computer science and math and hated it.

I'm a big hands on learner, so when it's not like a real world interactive way to learn, didn't really work for me.

My younger brother came to me and was like, "Hey, I found this program called IT Works."

Did the program and never looked back.

Getting to the job that I currently have, I started out just doing help desk for law firms and in 10 years, I turned it around to basically become the IT director.

So, for me, finding a program that kind of put me on the path that I really wanted gave me the trajectory to get to where I wanted to be.

But there was a lot of people that were like, "You dropped out of college just to go get a cert and do help desk?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Don't worry about it.

I'm happy.

I can pay my bills."

Finding that alternative path is making sure that it's gonna be good enough for you and feeling that it's good enough for you.

Tawie: You know what, I'm actually impressed like talking to you.

I think sometimes like it's hard to get employment, you know, right after getting your certs, right?

What would you say to someone who's going through that and how do you navigate that if you ever went through that?

Matthew: I didn't go through it personally, but I've mentored a lot of people from this program, and that's something that I helped them with on a probably weekly basis.

And I give them the same advice that I kind of followed.

A lot of this stuff ends up being more of who you know and the people that you can get introduced to.

So, a big takeaway from this program is you get a mentor, you get to talk to recruiters, you get to kind of like get your feelers out there, start talking to people.

That's what you need to do.

Try to get your resume in front of as many recruiters as you possibly can, modify your LinkedIn so that it's pulling up in as many search feeds as possible.

There's little information fields that you can add like your 50 skills.

Don't put 20, put 50, because you never know if that one is gonna end up being the thing that pulls you into a search for somebody.

Tawie: I'm glad to, you know, have spoken to you because I think sometimes like, you know--I'm now I'm being personal.

Like you tend to feel stuck forgetting that, you know, the whole--the world is like more than a billion people, you know, and, you know, everybody has an experience you could learn from.

Matthew: Every person that you see that like got to a position like me has had our plateau moments.

This didn't really boom like that for me until like the past four years.

So, there were six years of just like, "I don't feel like I'm going anywhere.

I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know where I'm going and I think this is the right direction, but I don't know if this is the right direction."

Don't worry about the negativity.

Do what you think is best for you in the moment and keep going with it because as you are trying, you're gonna learn what's going to work.

The biggest thing that I've learned from this program and from programs like this is you get to dictate your own path.

So, this is the jump that you wanna make and this is the thing you wanna get, go ahead and get it 'cause what's stopping you from getting it?

Don't be your own barrier.

Tawie: I enjoyed talking to Matthew because I could relate to him.

He went to college, but he's like, "College is not for me," and he dropped out and he got his certification.

So like, yeah, I enjoyed that, you know, that interview so much.

You know, career wise, I'm starting a new thing and there's like a path for me to keep growing, you know.

I just have to follow it.

There's gonna be tough times ahead, you know, but I'm gonna make it work even if I take a loss.

Like, you know, Rocky took a loss of Creed, but he kept going, you know, and he gave it his all.

That's why I took this trip, right, to kind of figure myself out and, you know, be with like-minded people.

You know, Ronnie, Dafina, and the crew, we're outside, man.

Rocky steps, you know what I'm saying?

Whoo!

The future looks bright.

Seattle, the other interviews, oh yeah, that's--that'll be fun, you know.

I'm with my peoples, you know.

Ronnie: Tawie, Dafina, and I are on a road trip.

Tawie: It's been a great journey so far.

You know, I wish it could go on and on because it's been a good experience.

Ronnie: We did a lot of interviews with people.

Dafina: Who have done short term programs as well as people who support those programs.

Amy: Take advantage of any kind of education that you can get.

If you can do it in a shorter amount of time, you know, there are a number of programs that are available to working adults.

announcer: Wondering what to do with your life?

Well, we've been there, and we're here to help.

Our website has some awesome tools to help you find your path, and you can check out all our documentaries, interviews, and more.

Start exploring at roadtripnation.com.