>>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.

[MUSIC] >> Max: I'm tired.

>> Billie: Yeah.

>> Aliyah: Same, I feel you.

>> Max: I couldn't sleep last night at all, I went to bed at 11:00 or 12:00, and I woke up at 3 o'clock.

>> Aliyah: I woke up at 1:00, I thought it was time for me to go, so I woke up, [INAUDIBLE] it's time.

>> Billie: [LAUGH] >> Max: Who are we interviewing tomorrow?

>> Billie: [LAUGH] >> Aliyah: [LAUGH] Okay, start it over.

>> Max: So who are we interviewing tomorrow?

>> Aliyah: [LAUGH] >> Max: Okay, so who are we interviewing tomorrow?

>> Aliyah: [LAUGH] It's only because you started laughing.

>> Billie: [LAUGH] >> Aliyah: If you wouldn't, I wouldn't.

I would have been okay.

I would have been okay.

Okay, [LAUGH] one more time.

>> Billie: [LAUGH] >> Billie: For this road trip, we're gonna travel up the East Coast.

>> Max: Throughout this entire trip, we're gonna be talking to education entrepreneurs, people who have seen flaws in the education system and have decided, you know what, I wanna help fix that.

>> Aliyah: I'm excited to be talking to people that I'd never know or never knew or never met.

>> Billie: Like, I would really love to learn to trust myself even when I've never done something before.

>> Aliyah: I don't want to let my passions die just because I am a mom or just because I am a wife.

>> Max: Be the first time I've been outside of California, so what's on the other side of this country?

How's the time zone gonna affect me you know?

Is the air gonna smell different?

It's gonna be fun.

[SOUND] >> Billie: I wanna open all of the cabinets, cuz that's my ritual when I go to a new place [LAUGH].

I'm Billie, I work as a direct service provider for kiddos with autism, and really fell in love with it.

Right now I'm creating a nonprofit after-school program for autistic elementary schoolers.

Bag going up, and and Billie going up, [LAUGH] hello.

Thinking back to how beat down I was in my education.

And how the kids in my summer camp open up whenever they're in an environment that's built for them is the most rewarding thing I think I could do with my life.

[LAUGH] I don't know anyone who started their own nonprofit, so I really hope I can meet some people and gain some reassurance that it's possible.

>> Aliyah: I don't really have a whole lot of stuff, it may look like it.

That's really it.

And I want it to be cute, so [LAUGH] gotta make sure I got little cute styles going on.

So, my name is Aliyah, I am a former teacher, now homeschooling mom, I'm also an entrepreneur.

I have a business in garden education, so I teach homeschooling parents and children how to garden.

And it's stressful trying to be the teacher and the parent, and so in order to find that balance, I really felt like gardening helped.

And that's when I was just like, let's just focus on turning this into a garden educational platform for homeschooling families.

So I wanna talk to educational entrepreneurs, because that's what I am, I'm 29, and sometimes I feel like I should be somewhere.

I should be where I wanna be.

And I know I'm still young, I know.

For the two weeks it's mine, it's my daughter's, but she told me to bring it with her, to cuddle, cuz we love to cuddle.

Every night she's like, mommy, cuddle with me.

I'm ready to have fun, though.

I am.

>> Max: Yeah, and then I fold the sleeves in a little bit, and I fold it about halfway on each side.

>> Aliyah: Yeah, I don't do that.

>> Max: My name is Maximiliano Varela, after college, I really don't have a solid game plan of what I wanna do.

But for the longest time, I've always known I wanna help people, I don't know why that's always been my, kind of like, my dream job help other people.

>> Billie: Superman Crocs.

>> Max: They're Spiderman, not Superman.

>> Aliyah: Spiderman.

>> Max: Don't insult my favorite hero.

>> Aliyah: Wow.

>> Max: I guess, my dream career would be to run some sort of nonprofit, high school based program, which I can help kids get the resources they need.

Help them learn the skills they need to succeed in college and beyond.

So when I found out that Roadtrip Nation was doing a educational, entrepreneurship road trip, the universe is telling me something, I should go try and do it.

[LAUGH] This is my camera.

Smile.

>> Aliyah: Are you taking pictures of me?

>> Billie: A camera for the camera.

>> Aliyah: I didn't even know that.

>> Billie: [LAUGH] >> [MUSIC] >> Aliyah: Bring it in, bring it in.

>> Billie: That's a lot of beignet.

It's just funnel cake shaped differently.

>> Aliyah: We got five seconds to wait.

>> Billie: Four, three, two, one.

>> [MUSIC] >> Max: I'm a first generation student, you know, which is very nerve wracking if I'm gonna be completely honest, [LAUGH] I'm trying so hard not to cry now.

[LAUGH] My grandpa actually was very well off in Mexico, because he wanted better for his family, for my dad.

By the time he immigrated here, my grandpa was kinda too old to learn how to navigate this new environment.

And so, he went from being a banker to being a janitor at Home Depot.

[LAUGH] Sorry, but he was never ashamed of that.

In fact, he used to tell me, if you're gonna do something, you're gonna have a job, make sure you're the best at it.

His work ethic and his willingness to do anything for his family, I still carry that with me a lot today.

[MUSIC] >> Ericka: Grandpa was like, if they needed something, I'm gonna go take them.

Grandpa was always there, it was hard.

Even though it was hard, I always encourage them to go to school and do their best, education is important.

>> Max: I feel like I'm the culmination of years of hard work, so just being the first in my family to go and get a college education, [COUGH] just validates all their sacrifices and all the hard work they did.

I did not wanna cry today.

[MUSIC] >> Max: I think after graduation, I don't have a solid plan.

My mom's already asking me too, you know, but it's both exciting and nerve wracking, cuz on one hand, finally gonna be done with school.

But the other hand, if I make decent money, I gotta do my master's.

I needed to figure out what I wanna do.

And I know it's something now, probably in education, because I love helping people, I love helping students.

Maybe there's something out there I can start working on, or someone I could work for that would help point me in the right direction to see what I want to do with my life.

You okay?

[LAUGH] So I think today we're gonna be talking to Alex, who runs the Be Loud organization, so I'm really excited to see what he's doing.

He's making podcasts with high schoolers.

It's like he's having them build their confidence through their own voice, by hosting these podcasts with each other and uploading them.

>> Alex: Hello, what's up?

>> Max: What's going on?

>> Alex: How are you doing?

>> Max: Good.

>> Alex: My own journey was, I was kinda in your situation, Max, right?

Being like, all right, I've worked camps, I've worked after-school programs throughout college, what's next?

In between those two years, I came down here post-Katrina to volunteer, I was like, I just wanna help out.

I wanna learn how to build a house.

I would lead groups of volunteers from all over the country and they would come, there'd be like 40 kids, I'd be like, all right, we're gonna hang sheet rock today.

And in doing that, I learned some trade skills, but I also was like, this is how I want my classroom to feel.

It's alive, it's real, you could get hurt, right?

It's connected to the community, then I got a job teaching a makerspace for elementary school students.

Just felt so freeing, and so we were doing things from making circuits, to Lego robotics, we were doing anything in everything, right?

And that's when, about my third year in, my co-founder of Be Loud, she recognized that there was a group of third graders who just hated writing.

But when they came into my space they were willing to try new things, they were willing to collaborate, and we said, how do we make their writing instruction feel more like a makerspace?

How do we get them more engaged to read and write?

What happens if we start a radio station?

Just sort of threw it out there, we gave them a blank piece of paper and said, if you fill this out, we'll put you on the radio, kind of joking.

And literally, the next day, kid comes running off the bus, he's got this piece of paper, it looked like a ransom note, he scratched it out.

And he's like, I'm good, I got a show.

And I was like, all right, it was before school, we got the microphone, we set it up, and we pressed record.

There were other teachers in the room that could feel that energy, and the energy was this kid not turning into a new kid or a different kid.

It was the same kid that we knew and loved, that didn't always show up in the academic work.

And for an educator, that's everything, that's gold, that's why our mission is amplify kid confidence.

We don't build confidence, give confidence, provide confidence, no, we amplify the confidence.

And the unique, weird energy that every kid already has within them, that's all I wanna do, and we just organically grew it.

And Be Loud was something I was always saying to kids, be loud, be loud, be loud on the mic, you've gotta speak up, be loud on the mic, and that name's kind of stuck.

And we've really been kind of figuring out what it means to be loud ever since.

>> Max: I'm at a point I have no idea what's gonna come next.

It does feel like I need to have everything figured out by next year because that's when I graduate, how do you get to graduate school honestly?

>> Alex: Don't.

Put it off.

>> Max: Put it off?

>> Alex: Yeah, put it off.

Don't go into graduate school right away.

Don't feel like that's a wrong thing, don't feel guilty or shamed or you got to figure it out, that's the biggest myth, take that pressure off you.

>> Max: Yeah.

>> Alex: I want you to have as many jobs, weird jobs, you've lived in different places as possible, that's a privilege and a freedom to do that.

But if you have that privilege and freedom, take advantage to it.

No one has it figured out, the only one who's gonna figure out is you, you haven't had a blank slate, right?

You probably went to school right after you graduated from high school.

>> Max: No, I did, I did.

>> Alex: You've had 20 plus years of people telling you where to be, what to do, and giving you a schedule, maybe college isn't so much like that.

But it's like, here's an idea, don't go to school.

Just because, I feel like I talked to a lot of young people who are in college and they're like, well, I'm gonna go to graduate school because I don't know what to do next.

It's like, that's actually the opposite reason why you should go to graduate school.

Knowing yourself is way more important than knowing a specific skill or knowing a trade.

So it's like, use this opportunity to really tap into like, yo, what do I care about who am I right now?

What do I want my next five years to look like?

>> Max: Him saying I don't need to have everything figured out by this moment, and I don't need to go to grad school right away was really, really reassuring.

That was the moment when it's like, maybe I don't have to go to school right away.

He didn't know what to do, but he figured out, he built an entire program dedicated to helping kids.

It's like, I can take my time, I can go explore a little bit.

I can just figure it all out, take some time for myself and not feel so pressured to like, if I don't go right away, I'll be a complete failure.

I am at my best when I'm in an uncomfortable situation.

For me, that's what I need, maybe I need to travel across the United States, [LAUGH] you know, just figure it out.

>> Aliyah: [SINGING] Living in the real world, ain't it good, don't go crying to your momma cuz you're all alone in the real world [LAUGH].

I love to travel and to sightsee.

>> Billie: Like I kinda wanna drive around and be with you all.

[LAUGH] >> Max: I gotta like detach this table.

[MUSIC] >> Max: That's fun.

[LAUGH] >> Billie: Bro, how's your back doing?

[LAUGH] >> Max: A lot better, I got used to after the first week.

>> Billie: [LAUGH] That's good.

The humidity is 95% >> [MUSIC] >> Billie: [LAUGH] >> Max: It says, city water fill, fresh tank fill.

>> Aliyah: If there's no poop, if nobody has been pooping, we good.

[LAUGH] >> Billie: No pooping.

>> Max: A little nervous, cuz I drive a tiny, tiny BMW, so I am well above what I'm used to, but it's also kind of fun.

[LAUGH] [LAUGH] >> Billie: There it is, okay.

>> Max: All right, see ya.

[LAUGH] >> Aliyah: We are interviewing Sunny Summers, from New Harmony High School.

>> Billie: And we're gonna be on a boat for like four hours, right?

Yeah, we're going to be on a real long boat ride.

>> Aliyah: They said, wear a hat.

>> Sunny: We bring all of our ninth graders have this course called Outdoor Adventures.

Kids don't even realize that we live on the The Mississippi River.

So we really believe that you have to get out and see it and understand it in order to have a real concept.

You cannot teach this in a textbook.

I was part of the founding team, I was the only current teacher that was on the team, and so I used a lot of the positive elements of what I'd seen done really well.

I avoided all of the negative elements of what I've seen done really poorly.

And then, we try to create something that felt really welcoming and really appropriate for the world in which we live in in Southern Louisiana.

Learning about what's going on in Southern Louisiana, if we don't start and educate everyone, this place will literally disappear.

The whole point of New Harmony is, it's the intersection between environmental and social justice, because you cannot extract those two things from each other.

There's another gator right behind you at 12 o'clock.

>> Aliyah: I really like how her work is grounded in environmental studies, so kids get to go outside.

As a homeschooling mom and just hearing all of that, I'm like, yes, this is how learning should be and what learning should look like.

>> Max: I like how she is able to educate kids the way she wants to educate them.

>> Aliyah: [LAUGH] I got my hat back.

[LAUGH] >> [MUSIC] >> Billie: There are times I'm like, this is incredible, just like my feelings around starting this organization, and leaving college feel really exciting.

And I feel like I'm doing something really important and kind of growing into an adult.

But then there are other times where that imposter syndrome hits so hard and I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing.

Why are people putting all this trust into me when I've never done this before?

Is it filming?

>> Camera operator: No.

>> Billie: Okay, thank you, how do I know when it's filming?

Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, they said that they'll edit out parts.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, growing up there and being in traditional public school for most of my education, I just found that sitting in a desk and being talked at was not for me.

Beaten down by the education system, that I was really not in a great place mentally.

And so I was like, I need to figure something out.

>> Billie: Right now I am working with one of the moms who I work with her kids as a direct service provider, and we're collaborating to make a nonprofit after-school program called We Belong.

It's designed for folks with autism, there is no after-school program in all of Buncombe County who serves the kids I'm trying to serve.

So I know if this doesn't work out, these kids have nowhere else to go.

Just the fear of letting them down can be very intense at times.

I would really love to learn to trust myself even when I've never done something before.

Yeah, that is something I really could use in this process of making this organization.

We'll fall backwards.

>> [MUSIC] >> Billie: [LAUGH] That was scary [LAUGH].

>> Tyler: Hello.

>> Judy: Welcome.

>> Aliyah: Nice to meet you, Aaliyah.

>> Judy: I am Judy Jankowski.

I am the head of school at Chesapeake Bay Academy, this is my 12th year.

The school was founded in 1989 by a group of parents of neuro diverse children who knew that their kids needed something else.

I started teaching forever ago, but I ended up teaching quite accidentally, I was waiting to do an internship.

And my father knew someone who was on a board of a school for kids who were severely and profoundly emotionally disturbed.

Discovered it was sort of my calling, right?

Got a master's in special education.

Worked across the realm of neuro diversity, the whole concept of normalcy is kind of, I don't know, doesn't appeal to me.

Traditional education is teacher-centered.

That is the exact opposite of how we do our work here.

It's about who are you as a person, as a little person coming up, what is it you need to learn?

What is it I as an educator, need to do to meet those needs?

And traditional schools have not made them feel like they're successful learners.

So the first thing you have to do is get past that.

You have to get them to believe in themselves, and the only way you do that is build that relationship first.

When you feel safe and cared for, then the rest of your brain is available for the learning to take place.

>> Billie: Working in special education, I feel like there's a lot of pressure to have decades of experience before you step into any sort of leadership role within the field.

And I'm just wondering what your take on that is, and do you feel like young people like myself have the ability to take on leadership roles in this field?

>> Judy: We need you to.

I mean, there's not an option, the reality is, there aren't enough people who are serving in special education period.

So we need you to.

The important lessons of leadership are ones that you, I don't know that you can read in a book.

Leadership means that you have to live comfortably in a sense of disequilibrium at all times, because you never know what is going to happen five minutes from now?

The lessons of leadership are ones that, you know, you're gonna have to live through if you're willing to take the chance, knowing that you're gonna fail, do so with a good mentor.

I think that's a really important one, find somebody you trust to help guide you through that exercise.

This is my dear friend, Tyler Williamson.

I understand, Billie, that you have an interest, a passion even for the idea of building out an after school program for individuals on the autism spectrum.

>> Billie: Yes.

>> Max: And this is the man.

>> Tyler: Hi.

>> Judy: [LAUGH] >> Tyler: That's what we do.

My brother who's on the spectrum and is the whole reason I do all of this.

Yeah, Brian was diagnosed when he was maybe 3 and I was maybe 4, so I really don't have any cognitive memories from before I was the older brother, to an individual who's on the spectrum.

And so it's been really one of the defining things of my life just kind of what led me to really loving the work that I do, so I'm the CEO now of FACT, Families of Autism Coming Together.

I started doing summer camp with our first program in 1996 with five kids including my brother in like my board president's kitchen for one week.

We've grown a lot now.

I have about 40 campers with autism at camp as well as we bring in 20 neurotypical volunteers, individuals not on the spectrum, ages 10 to 17 to be paired up as inclusion campers and buddies.

So a 12-year-old who's on the spectrum gets to hang out with a 12-year-old who's not on the spectrum.

And they get to work on their social communication skills, not just in the bubble of kids with autism, but with those neurotypical peers that they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis out in the real world.

For me, it was my summer job when I was in college was I worked at our camp and absolutely loved the organization, and now I'm lucky to be back and running it, which is really cool.

It's all about the people at the end of the day that make those experiences for those kids.

And obviously you got to find money to run the whole thing too.

>> Billie: Yeah.

>> Tyler: So that's also very important.

>> Billie: That's the biggest trip.

>> Tyler: Not as fun as the other stuff, but it's just the way the world works.

>> Billie: Having environments where neuro diverse students and neurotypical, whatever typical means, can learn in a space together, I think is just super powerful.

I'm feeling really good.

Judy at Chesapeake Bay Academy was really reassuring and gave a lot of good advice that was a little bit different than some of the advice I've heard on the trip.

And so it was just super cool to talk to someone working in the same field as me.

>> Director: What are you trying to do right now?

>> Billie: Swim in the ocean [LAUGH].

Yeah, I feel like this trip has, for the most part, gone really fast.

We were in New Orleans forever ago, but at the same time it feels like we just got here.

>> Max: Every other location since has been like rapid fire like that.

>> Aliyah: Yeah, I feel like we've been moving through the states pretty fast.

>> Max: I know for sure we're going to North Carolina and we're gonna get to meet your family.

>> Aliyah: [LAUGH] I'm so excited for North Carolina, y'all.

>> Billie: And we got 10 days left to go, I think, so I feel like it's gonna go by fast.

>> Aliyah: I'm excited, I'm excited too, because I just wanna learn and put myself out there.

I gotta find my own opportunity.

>> Billie: The advice of really, everyone we've talked to has been really reassuring that, I'm on the right path, and I am doing the right step to create this business.

This whole trip has been very reassuring that like if I just stick to what I'm doing now, things are gonna fall into place.

>> Max: I think for me personally what I really wanna get out of this trip for the next couple of days is, I have never really thought about not going to for my master's.

Like I said before, I have no idea what I wanna do.

I know it's something education, I know wanna help people, help students, but I just don't know how exactly to go about that.

And being on this trip, we've seen so many unique ways people have done that, so I think that's why I hope to get the last couple days of our trip.

Some sort of answer to that, even if that answer is just being explore more, then I'm fine with that, but just something I can take with me and carry with me.

>> Billie: One, two, three, road trip.

>> Billie: I'm really excited to just talk to people who built nonprofits from the dirt up and seeing that it is possible.

>> Aliyah: I just want to see the different programs out there.

You know, what is it that I can either add or change or just make sure that I am serving the community I want to serve in the right way?

>> Max: Just trying to see like, maybe there's something out there like, well, I could someone I could work for that would help me point me in the right direction to see what I want to do with my life.

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