 And we're back live. We are young talents making way only here on Think Tech Hawaii. And I'm Andrea Gabrielli, your host. Every Tuesday we keep an eye on the future. And today it's all about education and the wonderful opportunities that we could receive through it. And my guest is well aware of such incredible possibilities. She's a Princeton graduate in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Miss Central Oahu 2018 and third runner up at this year Miss Hawaii Scholarship Paget. Ladies and gentlemen, Jintien Kanuelani Shizuru. Hi, Andrea, thank you so much. Welcome to the show. But Kanue for friends, yeah? Yes, Kanue. Welcome to the show. Thank you. So Kanue, advancement through education has always been particularly important to you. And it also became your platform as you are Miss Central Oahu 2018. But why? Why is this, you know, why is it so caring for you? Yes, definitely. I think advancement through education is something that I chose to pursue when I ran for Miss Hawaii because I've seen in my own life and in the lives of those I love just how transformative education can be. I mean education I believe is one of, if not the most powerful tools we can use to change our lives for the better. Yeah, I know I've seen this in my dad who came from poverty and a lot of other struggles that native Hawaiian people face. And through that, he was able to have an amazing career as a United States Marine Corps helicopter pilot. And, you know, give me and my sister an amazing life in that we can have even further educational pursuits. And so now in my own life I've seen what education has done and it's just something that I would love to share with our community and with the people of Hawaii. You mentioned powerful education. I love that. What kind of opportunities for, you know, for young students today do you see in terms of education? Yeah, I mean I think one of the beautiful things about today is that we live in such a connected and technology-empowered world that you can truly learn anything that you want to. I think that's one of the greatest things I like about the situation that we're in today is that if young people are able to find a passion or find something that they're interested in, there are so many resources and accessibility to these resources that will allow them to pursue those dreams. And so I think where I come in and what I'd like to do is just help young people to be exposed to these possibilities. I think that one of, that's what I kind of wanted to get across with my platform is just that a lot of people tell me when, they just tell me I didn't know that I could do that, you know. I didn't know that I could go to this school. I didn't know that I could be something when I grew up. And so once people find those possibilities, it's easier to kind of help them along the path. And I think one of the biggest challenges is just finding what is it that you want to do? What is it that you love? So you try basically to listen to their dreams. And you also are working at Kamehameha School. So you have a lot of, you know, connections with students. And you try to connect them with opportunities they may not be aware of. Yeah. OK. Yeah, exactly. I think one, for one example, now that I work in finance, we were able to have a summit with some of our students at Kamehameha and just expose them to finance and entrepreneurship. It's a lot, and it was on our big island campus, which is something that a lot of these students don't get exposed to. So that was just amazing to see how much they took away from that. I was talking to a friend of mine who is also an educator. And we were having this conversation about sometimes the students are not ready to learn pedagogy and everything. Maybe the teachers are, you know, they come in, they start speaking, talking about science or math or music or whatever. But the students are not sometimes ready because, you know, things that go on in life or everything. Do you see some potential help with technologies in this particular, because maybe they could learn more? Or how do you see this, you know? No, definitely. Some of the community service that I focus on is tutoring. And so I think I definitely see that. There are children, young people who just aren't ready to learn. And I think, I mean, from my observation at least, I think that comes from the fact that everyone learns differently. And a lot of times, the way we present knowledge to people is just in a way that they're not receptive to. And so I think that technology can certainly help that, I think, that, like I said previously, there are just so many resources in today's world that we are able to structure people's education in a way that is more fitting to them. And so I think in our school systems, that's something that I would like to see. And also just one thing that I've always found when I'm working with people who seem disinterested is finding a way to connect it to what they are passionate about. You know, maybe you don't love math. So it's the teacher that, you know, should try and understand. I think so. I mean, it's definitely a two-way street. People, you know, the student has to come halfway. And I think the teacher has to come halfway. And so in my tutoring, you know, I love math, but I know a lot of people do not love math. But when you phrase it in the way that, you know, we need to learn these things so that we can progress through our education so that we can pursue further goals, you know? Maybe that's athletics in college. Maybe that's any kind of career you have. But I think framing it in a way that people see that it's just a stepping stone to get to further goals often helps people to be more motivated. Right. So you've been, you know, you are a Princeton graduate. And then, you know, you also decided to run for Miss Hawaii. You are Miss Central O'ahu. And you basically to promote, to foster this education to, as a possibility for making, you know, dreams come true with our youth. But now I'm curious to see some pictures that you've brought us of your journey. Yes. Let's have a look at the first picture here that we got. And I believe this is where you were crowned Miss Central O'ahu. Yes. And you are the one on the right. I am, the tall one. And so can you tell us more about this experience for you? What did it mean to you? And also, who is the other one? Yes, that is my sister queen, Ariel Rathburn, Miss Leeward O'ahu, who I have to give a shout out to. She's been amazing to be on this journey with. She's such a great friend. But yeah, so when I decided to run for Miss Central O'ahu, I guess you could say I didn't. Well, I did decide in the end. But it wasn't a choice I had originally set out for myself. My director for my now current director, Keone Fukino, approached me. And he suggested to me, or first he asked how old I was. And then he said, have you considered running in a pageant before? And I said, oh, no, I haven't. And then he asked me, oh, would you like to run in my pageant Miss Central O'ahu? And I said, oh, you know I've never done that before. And he said, oh, that's fine. Don't worry about that. You learn the process. Yeah, exactly. You don't need experience. And so I said, OK. And then I went home to my mom that night. And I said, mom, I'm running for Miss Hoy. And she looked like, what? And I was like, I signed up. But it's too late. Yeah, too late. We can't go back. But no, it's been really incredible. I think one of the reasons, I had two reasons that I decided to run and that I like to think that I was able to accomplish both of those goals in my Miss Hoy experience. The first being my platform and just reaching the community in a broader sense, I think that it was such a great way to connect to people that I would never have been able to connect to. And then secondly, like I said, I had never done it before. And I think I'm always looking for things that I've never done. I think that growth comes in so many ways. And so I saw it as a way for me to just push myself in new ways and learn new things and grow education in a much different form. What about your family? You mentioned your family at the beginning. They were kind of surprised. How was this journey, Miss Central O'ahu and Miss Hawaii, how did they support you? They helped you through this process? Definitely. My family, they're my rock. They're my everything. And they have been so supportive of me in this journey. I think anyone you ask, a lot of young women who run in Miss Hawaii will tell you the same thing that I would never have gotten this far without my family. That's beautiful, because education, we talked about teachers and students, but somehow the very first of the strength, the rock, as you said, comes from the family. Yes, I think parents are definitely the first educators. And so that's definitely true in my household. And just seeing them always there for me was another great part. I think it really brought our family together, because we had to work so hard as we shared gold. Let's see some more pictures here. Let's see. Let's see. OK, this is a special night, isn't it? Yes. What are we looking at here? That is my winning of the third runner up at the Miss Hawaii Scholarship pageant last June, or this past June. Yeah, June the second. OK, fine. And so being on this stage, representing your platform education in front of all these people, what kind of experiences did you? A coronation journey. It was quite exhilarating. I think I can't think of another week in my life that has really pushed me as much as Miss Hawaii Week did. You rehearse all day to get things right. And then it's really just like a cumulative experience of all these things you've worked so hard for over the past few months in one single moment. So that was definitely an experience that I think I'll remember for a very long time. And just like you said, being on stage and being able to share with the people who were there that night, as well as the people watching at home on TV, just what you stand for, what you believe in, and what you want to do for the community. Wonderful. So I believe we have another picture showing. Let's see. This one is an interesting picture. I love that. Yeah, this is a very nice picture. So this is a program that Miss Hawaii has, the princess. So you were mentoring some of these students as well. Yeah, so that is my little Kira. She is a ball of joy. But the Miss Hawaii Princess Program, it's kind of the first step in the Miss Hawaii or the overall Miss America organization, I guess you could say, as you know. But these are very young, so it's not a competition. It's not a competition. As you know, you had Maya, Miss Hawaii's outstanding teen. And then even younger than that, we have the Princess Program, which allows us to reach girls who are even younger than teens. They run from ages six through, I believe, 12 or so. How old is she? Six, I believe. She's a little one. But yeah, and so each one of the Miss Hawaii contestants is paired with a princess, sometimes two. And it's just a day for us to spend with them and show them what it means to be a strong, empowered woman at such a young age. I think it's important for young girls, especially, to have mentors. And I like that the Miss America organization gives us this opportunity to work with young girls and educate them and just show them that they're capable of so much. So what kind of day did you spend with her? What kind of questions did she have for you? We do a lot of, we just try to build up their confidence. So as our past Miss Hawaii was Catherine Tevria, she's going to be at dental school next year. And so she taught them about oral health and things like that and sharing kind of her background. We just work on what it takes to be, I guess, a confident woman. And so we, and then we do help them practice their walk because they get to present at the Miss Hawaii's outstanding teen pageant as a part of the princess program. And then just any questions that they might have for us along the way, it's just a day to spend with them and share wherever we come from. And speaking of powerful, you know, woman and talented and everything, up next we're going to have some more pictures of you doing some incredible stuff with your talents, which I understand is music, but also rowing. So stay tuned, we'll be right back. Three teens to smoke will lose years of these moments. It's your life. Don't miss a thing. Truth is I'm impressed. I haven't been asked such intelligent questions in a long time. Thanks. Put in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread and kissed them all soundly and put them to bed. Hunger is a story we can end. End it at feedingamerica.org. We're back here with Yantien Kanulani Shizuru, Miss Central Oahu 2018. Talking about education and the amazing possibilities that you can get involved with. So thank you for being with us, Kanulani. Thank you. You know, in this, now talent, because we mentioned earlier as well, the Miss Hawaii organization is not only, you know, scholarships and platforms, but it also talent. And your talent, I personally believe it's very interesting because it's playing the piano. Let's see some pictures of you, you know, playing the piano and then you can tell us more about how you got involved, for example. How did you start? Yeah, let's see some, yeah. So this one is at the Miss Hawaii. Yes, that's the Miss Hawaii pattern this past June. So how did you learn to play the piano? So I started to play the piano when I was about four years old. My mom started me and so, and I played seriously up until I was about 12 or 13. My mom is really the one who I am so thankful for that made me practice the piano. Push you, push you. Yes, I wasn't, I did like it, but I don't think I was as self-motivated as a little four-year-old to play the piano. But you know, she really stayed on me and I'm so grateful. I think music can just grow and shape a person in so many ways. And so as we were talking about before, kind of life got in the way. I started playing sports, really focusing on school, and I didn't have as much time to play piano as seriously as I would have liked to. And so I didn't come back to piano really until I decided to run for Miss Hawaii. And I'm really grateful for the Miss Hawaii pageant for that reason, because I think it really brought me back to the piano in a way that I wasn't expecting to as an adult. What song did you play as part of the? I played the song My Shot from the musical Hamilton, which was kind of an eccentric choice, but I love so much about Hamilton. I think Lynn Manuel is such a musical genius and just playing a song. I love what it represents both in the theme of the song as well as just the fusion of hip-hop and all of so many aspects. So it was a fun song to learn. You compose as well or? I do not. I've only written one song on the ukulele in Hawaiian and that is the extent of my composing. Let's see more pictures. Let's see. This is another view. Here you are at Miss Central O'ahu pageant. Yeah, okay. So what does music mean to you in terms of as a possibility of connection to in terms of education as well? Can we, you know, music is such a great tool in terms of to help students who maybe have sometimes difficulties to speak or it can be used, can it be used? Oh, I definitely think so. I think music shapes our cognitive ability just in so many ways. I think even some ways that we don't even fully understand. And as we were talking about before, there's just so many ways for children to connect to what they're learning and I think music is definitely one of those ways. Have you had the questions from your princesses about music, about, you know, if you could teach them or something? Sorry, just what would I teach them about music? Well, if one of these, you know, princesses was curious about the music that you played, yeah. I think I would just tell them, you know, I would certainly tell them about my own songs and my own learnings but I think if it was something they were interested in, I would definitely tell them to pursue it and just try, you know, try out so many different instruments and styles of music to see what it is that they love. And nobody knows what might happen in the future. I was reading the other day the story of a person who can't hear actually and yet he became a very, very great composer despite the fact that everybody was telling him, oh, you can't hear, why are you playing music? So it's really, you know, miracles do happen especially when we work very hard as you're doing as well in your experience. Certainly so. But there is something else that you were doing in terms of, while you were at Princeton as well, you got involved in a sport which you've never done before and you got some great results vowing. So what's the story there? So, you know, that's another thing that someone asked me if I wanted to participate and I told them, oh, I've never done this before but, you know, I've had first time, no experience but so I, I mean, I grew up playing sports mostly volleyball, I just, but I loved being active when I was growing up in school and so I got to Princeton and I didn't really have that outlet and so I was just walking around the student activities for, you know, you can't tell because we're sitting but I'm a little under six feet tall and so the rowing coaches came up to me and they said, oh, you know, are you interested in being a part of our team? And I had never done it before but I said, you know, that sounds like something I would enjoy. Is it required before? I'm not required but it is helpful to be tall and so I decided to go and they taught me how to row having never run before and, you know, I learned so much and she is- Let's see some pictures, let's see some pictures. Okay, so the stroke, we have, you know, here in Hawaii, outreared canoe but the stroke for this one is very different, isn't it? Very different, yes. Totally a sweep stroke and actually I think one of the biggest misconceptions people have is that the outrigger canoe paddling stroke that we have in Hawaii is relatively overhand and upper body heavy but the rowing stroke is very leg heavy. If you can see in the picture, you know, our legs bend because the seat on the boat moves and so it's actually quite a leg intensive sport. Right, right. But also you went on the river Thames as well. Yeah, we have one more pictures. Let's see, let's see this one. I'm curious to learn more about this river Thames. Wow, so you won him. That was at the Henley Regatta which is a really big rowing race in England. I like to explain it to people who are not familiar as the Wimbledon of rowing. Wow. But it was such a great experience and so my team had won the Ivy League championship here in the States and kind of as a reward we were able to go overseas to England to row against, to row against some of the British teams there and that was a once in a lifetime experience. These are all experiences that you had being part of schools such as Princeton Ivy League School. But you know, if I for example, so sometimes we hear about college and you know, should I do it, should I? And this is a program that is watched by a variety of young talents, you know, such as you are. So would you, you know, if I were young students, oh, should I do college, should I join for college? Yeah. I think that's a great question. I think it's a really difficult question because as we've been talking about people learn so many different ways and sometimes, you know, there are certain instances I believe where maybe college isn't always right but what my dad always taught me and what I like to tell young people today is that college gives you so many options and gives you so many opportunities and so I think in a world where we have so many possibilities and where we're not always sure what our path is going to be, I think that college is a great way to learn and to find yourself and to give yourself those opportunities and set yourself up so that whatever you do choose to pursue, you're able to. And nowadays there are also opportunities such as the early college program where it gives the opportunity to students to see what it is, what college is and then so that they can decide. How is, so Kamehameha School is doing a lot in terms of this early college programs as well. You have students coming to you and asking questions. How do you see this interest from the students to actually join and go for college? No, one thing that I've loved since working at Kamehameha is that it's given me a different perspective and instead of being a student, I get to work and see the student's perspective kind of from an outside view and so what inspires me is that so many of our students are looking for these programs, they are asking questions, they are pushing themselves and so that makes me really excited. I think it just goes to show that some of the work we've been doing is paying off and getting our young people and for me particularly our young native Hawaiian students interested in college and pursuing those goals. So colleges on the mainland or even here in Hawaii, you see this, because you went to Princeton but then you came back. Yes. So why, you know. I think whether to go to school here or on the mainland is such a personal decision there's different things that are right for everyone but I know for me I wanted to experience something that was just so different from what I had grown up with and to meet new people. I think I can almost say that I've met almost every type of person by going to Princeton because the population there is just so diverse and people come from so many walks of life and so I think I knew I wanted that and I got that from Princeton but at the same time Hawaii is home, I think for a lot of us who grow up here it's such a beautiful place, it's such a beautiful culture and you know it draws us back and so here I am. You came back to help the people of Hawaii with this, you know, wonderful. Education, you know, we talked a little bit about it, the possibilities and everything. Hope also is something that young people really deserves. You know, maybe they really deserves this hope for a better future and education can be wonderful tool to help them. But how to inspire them, how you know to really sort of shake them and make them realize that's what I want to do, you know, when I grow up or I have a dream I want to make it come true. So how to inspire the young generations and as part of your experience as well as Miss Central Oahu and yeah, how, you know. Yeah, I think to inspire young people it's just helping them find that personal connection and helping them to find what it is, what lights, you know, the spark in them because I think a lot of times you could be the smartest person but if you don't love the job that you're doing you're not gonna want to do it well. And so in the same with school if it's not what you love then it's gonna be really difficult to force yourself to study for those things and so I think just helping young people to explore the possibilities and find what it is they love. Once they find that, they'll want to do the work. Future for you, what do you see ahead for you now? Oh, that's a tough one. Because now you're working at Kamehameha School but you also have, you know, you graduate in engineering. So plans, future plans. I think I always joke that I'm not a fan of the five-year plan which you didn't get that advice from me but it's hard for me to plan. I think ideally I'm working in finance right now but as you said, I have an engineering degree and I think the future for me brings that together. And your dissertation was, your thesis was also about green gases and missions. Yeah, okay. So I think what I want to do is just be able to kind of relate a lot of the things that I've learned and loved as an engineer to people who don't have that kind of experience. I truly do believe that some of the environmental issues that we'll face are some of the toughest of our generation and we're not going to overcome those problems until people understand the issues in a way that makes sense to them and also find a reason to want to do something about it. And so I think... Make a difference, right. I think if I can use just all of my experiences that I've had thus far to help push that goal forward, that's hopefully something I see in the future for me. You know, our conversation is slowly coming to an end but I suggest to sort of wrap up this education as a powerful tool to realize people's dreams. What kind of suggestions would you have for a young viewer, for example, here today to make their dreams come true? I think if I would tell the young people watching, you know, try anything and everything, I think if there's one thing this discussion has shown is that I certainly have tried a lot of things and I don't regret any of them. Even new things. Yes, new things, try new things as often as you can and then from there you'll find something that sticks and then when you find something that does, you know, just pursue it with everything you have and give it all you've got. Thank you very much, Kanai. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you. It's been great. So you've been watching Young Talent's Making Way here on Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you very much for watching us. Aloha.