I decided to play beach volleyball in college because it drives me. Everyday I am motivated by not only my love for the sport but also my passion for improvement and progression. I enjoy working hard every day towards my goals, and it is such an amazing thing to reach those goals and keep making new ones. When I started playing beach volleyball at 13 years old, it altered my life. I became a better athlete, student, and person. Those improvements didn't just happen right away, they happened over time. Over time my passion for volleyball grew and grew, and at the same time my drive did as well. At 13 years old I wasn’t even thinking about playing volleyball in college, all I knew was that I had fun playing volleyball. However as I kept progressing to a higher level, I knew I wanted to keep that progression going. Now as a senior in high school headed off to play D1 beach volleyball at Pepperdine University in August, I don’t know what my life would look like without athletics. I am so excited to be on a team of girls with the same drive as I have, as well having the opportunity to compete and play incredibly fun and difficult games of volleyball. Going to Malibu, California will be a big change for me, and I am a little nervous, but I know that it was the right decision for me to branch out and experience a new place as well as new people. Home for me will always be Hawai’i in my heart, no matter where I am. I will keep that love of my home in my heart when I go out and represent the amazing Outrigger Canoe Club program, as well as show my gratitude for them as I compete at the next level. At Pepperdine I will be majoring in Journalism and Sustainability, after I hope to attend graduate school at another university, perhaps international. As of now, I would love to be in the environmental journalism field working with National Geographic or the Nature Conservancy. I am incredibly passionate about the environment and growing up in Hawai’i, I have seen the negative effects of climate change and pollution. I believe that with increased public education and knowledge of environmental issues, we as a population can make differences to help all of our homes. I intend to travel across the world and tell peoples stories and then bring them to light and share them with the world. I believe that there are countless important untold stories out there, waiting to be told. I am a passionate driven person who loves being immersed in challenges. I cannot wait to embark on this next journey of mine when I head off to college this summer. I also can’t wait to see how the Outrigger Canoe Club program and the Beach Volleyball community in Hawai’i grows. The future holds so many opportunities and exciting moments, I can’t wait!

I decided to play beach volleyball in college because I truly love this sport and wanted to continue playing at a higher level. I want to help represent the state of Hawaii in collegiate beach volleyball because I feel like the girls of Hawaii are wrongly discounted. The girls of Hawai’i train just as hard, if not harder, than many of the mainland girls, yet the mainland girls dominate the collegiate beach volleyball scene. That’s why I desired to play in college: to grow the sport of beach volleyball and also represent the Hawai’i beach volleyball community. The community of beach volleyball in Hawaii might be small, but it is incredibly strong. Everyone is rooting for each other to succeed because the more girls get recruited, the more our sport grows. I also chose to play beach volleyball in college because I think this sport is incredible. I can’t wait to learn more about the game and how to not only become a better beach volleyball player but also a better athlete in general. Even though beach volleyball at the juniors level is mostly individual, it feels like everyone in Hawai’i is on the same team. I really wanted to keep that team aspect going in college as well. I believe that I will make lifelong friends on my team in college, and I can’t wait to make great memories with them. I always knew I wanted to go to college in a different state, and I realized that it would be really scary to go to a completely new and different place and not know anyone. However, I realized that through beach volleyball, I will make a great group of friends and have a great college experience. In and after college, I hope to pursue journalism. I want to find the greatest stories in the world and then share them with everyone. I love to travel and learn about different places and stories, so I would love to be a journalist for National Geographic. I truly just love to learn new things, and I don’t want to dedicate my life to learning about just one specialty; I want to learn about everything. Through journalism, I think this will be possible because I will be able to see the world and learn about small details that I would have never noticed before. I also want to study sustainability and environmental science in college because I am incredibly interested in the environment, and I deem climate change and environmental issues to be the largest issue our world and society face right now. I want to make a difference in the world, and I want to learn and study ways to make that possible. I genuinely desire to make an impact on the world, whether that is through my writing, the environment, or even beach volleyball. I know that I will be able to accomplish this goal of impacting the world to some degree because I love to work hard and persevere to succeed in my goals.