This is the second of four specials in which outstanding HIKI NŌ graduates from the Class of 2020 gather together to discuss their HIKI NŌ experiences and how they feel the skills they learned from HIKI NŌ will help them in college, the workplace and life. They also discuss their disrupted senior year of high school and thoughts on the future as they transition into adulthood during a worldwide pandemic.

This episode features Skylar Masuda, who graduated from H.P. Baldwin High School on Maui and is now pursuing a psychology and media double major at Pitzer College in California; Kallen Wachi, who graduated from Waimea High School on Kauaʻi and is now a commercial aviation major at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks; and Anijah-Rose Tomacder, who graduated from Kapaʻa High School on Kauaʻi and is now studying creative media and film at Northern Arizona University.

Due to travel restrictions and social distancing guidelines, their conversation took place via Zoom, with HIKI NŌ Class of 2018 graduate Marlena Lang (now a journalism major at Biola University) serving as interviewer.

In the show, Skylar discusses the skills she learned working on a HIKI NŌ story about a Maui woman who sold banana bread (made from a 100-year-old family recipe) to support herself while she battled cancer. Kallen talks about what he learned while producing a story on his most important role model during high school—his ROTC advisor. Anijah reflects on her experience working on a story about the Kauaʻi Resilience Project, a program dedicated to reducing the number of youth suicides on Kauaʻi.

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KALLEN WACHI (HIKI NŌ graduate from Waimea High School on Kauaʻi): “We always thought, ‘This is the world we live in and we can’t change that because there are people out there older than us, wiser than us, telling us what is right and what is wrong. ’As young people, HIKI NŌ is making us feel empowered to tell stories to break through those barriers.”