[female narrator #1] Everywhere you turn, people try to tell you who to be and what to do.
But what about deciding for yourself?
Roadtrip Nation is a movement that empowers people to define their own Roads in life.
Ever since the original Roadtrip in 2001, the keys to the Green RV have been passed down to a new generation of Roadtrippers.
[Roadtripper #1] Me and two total strangers [Roadtripper #2] Are going to travel across the nation, interviewing [Roadtripper #1] People who have made lives out of passions.
[Roadtripper #3] Trying to find out who we are and what we want to do with our lives.
[female narrator #1] This is Roadtrip Nation.
♪ [Roadtripper #3] Here we go.
[phone dialing] [Roadtripper #1] Hi, Dr. Baker.
My name is Jacqueline Gamboa.
[phone dialing] [Roadtripper #2] Hi, Mr. Enriquez.
My name is Megan Doyle.
[Roadtripper #3] Hi, Christine.
My name is Zachariah Cowan.
[Jackie] Me and two other friends will be taking a Roadtrip across the nation, [Megan] Interviewing interesting people with unique and passionate careers.
[Jackie] We're talking to them to know how they found their passions.
[Zachariah] And ask questions that kids my age are wondering about life or are trying to figure out.
[Jackie] I will be graduating in two weeks and I feel like I'm kind of at a loss.
♪ I'm Jackie Gamboa.
I'm a chemistry major at the University of Texas at El Paso.
And I and grew up in Chihuahua, Mexico.
♪ [Megan] So my name's Megan Doyle.
I'm 21.
I'm from Huntington, which is on Long Island, New York.
And I'm here at Bucknell University, which I just graduated from yesterday.
[crowd cheering] [Zachariah] I'm Zachariah.
I'm 22 years old, about to turn 23.
I'm at Ohio State, in geology.
It's been really cool because Megan and Jackie are very, very different.
It's really exciting to not really actually know them all that well and just have this big explosion about to come.
[Megan] Jackie's from Mexico, Zachariah's from Ohio, and I'm from New York.
We're literally all over the map, and each week we do a Skype call and get the details of our Roadtrip planned, like where we're going and who we're talking to.
[Zachariah] Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
[laughing] [Zachariah] We go to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco.
After that we go down to Phoenix and Houston, Dallas, Chicago.
East Coast, New York and all those places.
And then it starts developing more!
Oh, these are the people we're going to interview!
Wow!
Just getting closer and closer and closer.
[Megan] It's been really interesting because I feel like I know them really well because we always update each other on our personal lives and in the midst of planning the Roadtrip, learning about who we're going to be bunking with for six weeks.
[Jackie] This is where I'm going to be working right now.
[Megan] What are you making?
[Jackie] Some molecules.
[Jackie] So tomorrow, I am graduating with my bachelor's in chemistry.
A lot of my family members are coming.
Like, 40 of them.
[laughs] I am the first one to graduate in the U.S. ♪ [Jackie] So, Chihuahua State.
Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua are two of the main cities being affected by a lot of violence because of the drug war.
Unfortunately, um, I think almost everyone here in the city or in the state, knows someone that got killed or knows someone that knew someone that was killed.
Um, it can happen to anyone.
When I look up the news here of Chihuahua City and I see all these people died and things like that, and that is one of the scariest things.
When I call my mom and she doesn't answer, I'm just like, "Oh, please let it don't be her."
A dream that I have is to come back to the community and make a difference.
This is where I grew up, and I'd like to give back to it.
My mom would always tell me, "You're a role model."
And I was like, "No mom, I'm not a role model.
"No, no, no.
Don't throw that at me, okay?"
Once I decided that I wanted to go to UTEP, my little cousins were like, "You're doing that?
That is so cool!"
So, that's when I started realizing, "Okay, somebody's looking up to me."
They're seeing that if you're a good student, then you can get a scholarship, and then you can go to college, um, and then you can make a difference.
Graduation day is here!
Woo!
[announcer] Jacqueline Gamboa Varela [family cheering] ♪ [Zachariah] So this is my last night at home before I go out to Roadtrip Nation, and this is the best way I could possibly be spending it.
[playing guitar and banjo] [Zachariah] I'm leaving tomorrow on the most incredible adventure I've ever been on, the longest adventure I've ever been on, and in the most unfamiliar environment I've ever been in.
So this is going to be really amazing and I'm really, really floored that this is all happening.
♪ [Zachariah] It'll start tomorrow.
Ready or not, here I come to California!
♪ [Jackie] I saw Zachariah far from the back and I was like, "Oh!
There he is!"
[Jackie] So nice to finally meet you!
[Zachariah] I know, right?
[Megan] I come down the escalator and it's like, "Oh!
There's my team.
They're a little taller than I thought, originally.
[Zachariah] You are so tiny!
Ohhh!
♪ [Zachariah] Oh my goodness!
Ohhh!
[Megan] I didn't even register that, like, "Oh, big green RV."
[Zachariah] Wow!
We're seriously about to live together, guys!
This is the real deal.
[Megan] How the hell am I going to drive that?
[RV accelerating] [Megan] We're here in an empty parking lot, learning to drive the RV.
Um...I'm kind of anxious.
[RV starting] [Zachariah] Oh, that's great.
[Jackie] Whoo!
[Megan] Ahh!
OK, now what?
Oh, seatbelt!
[laughter] [Megan] I lived in the same house my entire life.
On Monday I did dance, and Tuesday, tennis, Wednesday, soccer.
All these different activities.
Typical of a White, middle class person from New York.
[Megan] Oh...Oh my gosh.
[Jackie] We're moving!
Ahh!
[Megan] We're moving, and I'm in charge of it.
Oh god, I just looked away!
(laughs) I was nine years old when I decided that I wanted to be an elementary school teacher.
So I came to Bucknell and I declared elementary ed.
as my major.
[cheering] [Megan] It wasn't even a decision, I don't even think.
It was just... A known, in a way.
Oh, there's real cars and real people, and real trees.
This is where I start getting a little flustered.
I find one thing I like, but then I get really comfortable in that routine to the point where I'm not necessarily challenging myself.
I am very easily satisfied, so is there so much else that I'm not reaching for?
I don't want to be content prematurely.
So that's where this whole idea came from, of going on the Roadtrip.
To face my fear really aggressively head-on.
Look: car, cement block, curb, tree.
That's a lot of different things I could potentially strike.
[Zachariah] See if you can hit all of them.
That's how you get your points.
[Megan] How many points can I get if I hit everything in sight?
Oh man.
Going straight is so easy, and then going left is a little harder, and then going right is practically impossible.
Oh sweet lord.
Oh my god.
Oh god.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Phew!
[Jackie] Whoo hoo!
[Megan] Can that be last one I do for the day?
[Megan] I expect the next few weeks to take a lot of the ideas that I hold sacred and shake them up or confirm them, or extend them, or change them.
I'm expecting this to change my perspective and rework my perspective for a long to come.
[Zachariah] Alright!
So we have mastered fully, within an hour and a half or so, the ability to precisely park and drive this big, monstrous beast.
So now we're being set free.
This is the real freakin' deal.
[Megan] Yeah, we're going to our interview!
[Jackie] Whoo!
[Zachariah] Just got real, baby.
Puh, nothing!
Like it's nothing.
Pa-pow!
So the big mission this summer is we have the blessing and opportunity to go ask these people questions that we are all wondering about.
I think the biggest question that I have for these leaders and that I want to get out of them is this inspirational concept, that's so abundant, of, "Follow your passions!"
Everyone says that until the end of the day, but I am very passionate about a lot of things and it's hard for me to encompass it into one channel of everything.
This is my didgeridoo.
[deep horn noise] I'm just a geology major at Ohio State University.
My minor?
I have a minor in Russian.
[Zachariah speaking Russian] [Zachariah] My other minor is sustainable agriculture.
Also, I started making my own soap.
I also blacksmith.
It's one of my biggest hobbies.
I've been learning how to distill herbs and make my own oil.
This is lavender, which has a multitude of different uses.
I'm just always interested in the world around me, the equation of, what makes all this move?
How does the water get from the earth up to the leaves?
Water has a concept called cohesion which means it sticks to itself.
As the water evaporates off, it's pulling it slowly up through the tree.
That's amazing!
There's also the concept of deep time.
Everything is chemistry!
Atoms and electrons.
Wow!
Relatively speaking, it's... ...static friction... ...moving on an X and Y axis!
Those puppies rained for 180 million years!
Everything is physics... Everything!
You realize it's so beautiful!
It's all so beautiful.
And that's who I am, that's where I am, and that's about all I know about myself right now.
There's this whole gap between following your passions, and then getting up and bearing down on what you need and what you want to do and following that drive.
It's amazing that I get to meet these people.
And more than that, I get to have a conversation.
And we get to extract this information that we can relate to all these confused kids just like me.
[Jackie] So right after driver's training we had our first interview.
That was with Graeme Ray.
He is the chief scientist for Surfline.
It's a website that all surfers go to check out the waves.
[Megan] We are checking out Surfline.com and basically we're looking at the ocean forecast for...
Right now we're looking at Indonesia.
But you can look at anything in the entire country and anything in the world.
[Zachariah speaks Russian] [RV door closes] [Megan] We're going to our first interview!
[Megan] I think for me the idea of talking to these people, these inventors, these mathematicians, these doctors... Talking to them on a real, basic human level removes the mystique a lot.
And I think that's what it is.
It's a fear of the unknown.
And I think that will be huge for me discovering new things and thinking about new things.
[Zachariah] Hello!
[Megan] Hi!
[Jackie] Hi!
[Megan] Megan.
[Graeme] Megan, nice to meet you.
[Jackie] Jackie.
[Graeme] Jackie.
♪ [Megan] The reason why I went on this Roadtrip is to talk to people who have made careers out of something that they love and might have some insight for me to do the same, because I'm from New York and I've never really been anywhere but New York.
It's my first time in California.
It's my first time in an RV, A lot of firsts today, alone.
[Graeme] Yeah.
[Megan] So, it's interesting.
I guess our first question for you would be where were you at when you were a kid and trying to figure out what you liked?
[Graeme] When I was young, all I wanted to do was join the navy.
And then when I was about 16, I found out I was colorblind and the navy wouldn't take me.
And then I was flailing around a little bit, like, "What am I going to do?
"I don't know, I like ships."
And I ended up going to study naval architecture and shipbuilding.
I got an offer to come to Florida to study there in ocean engineering and submarine design and submarine building.
And that was where it sort of then, my interests took off.
But how I ended up getting to where I am now, in surfing, which you can see there's this sort of progression and everything sort of has a clear link between where it starts and where it ends.
I was learning how to build a specific set of maps for the navy to figure out whether their ships are going to be able to get through a storm or not.
How big are the waves going to be in two days time out in the middle of the Pacific?
And it turned out that my students starting using that to figure out when to go surfing.
[Zachariah laughing] And I ended up doing this website on the side as just a sort of a hobby and a way to make a little extra money, never realizing that it would take off.
It got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until this company said, "We'd like you to move to California "and join the surf world.
And surf."
And here I am.
I've been here now for 12 years.
Something like that.
Ten or twelve years.
[Jackie] How do you like...
I think for us, it's like, everyone is expecting for you to have a plan...
I don't know, dictated.
Once you get a certain education you need to find a 'real' job.
And we're so stressed out that we don't have a plan yet.
How do you go about it?
[Graeme] I was in academia.
I was in that track.
So when I did make that decision to leave, there were some people that were shocked.
And also people thought it was a waste of a Ph.D.
It's like, "You're taking this pinnacle "of science and engineering "and you're going to go waste it on a bunch of guys who just hang out at the beach all day long?"
And...
There was a little part of me that felt the same thing as well.
It's like "I'm Dr. Ray, "I shouldn't be doing this."
But when you actually see what we do here, it is as technologically advanced, if not more so, than anybody else doing the same work.
Our models are better than a lot of government agencies'.
And even though my original aim was to join the navy, I ended up not feeling all that comfortable with the fact that a lot of the research that I was doing was effectively weapons systems.
But now what I do is people get up in the morning and they can say, "Should I go surfing today or not?"
And they can look at what we make and go, "Yeah, I'm going to go surf."
And it puts smiles on people's faces.
And I think I could probably earn a lot more money doing a different job if I wanted to.
But I wear a t-shirt to work.
You can't assign some sort of dollar value to that.
[Jackie] Yeah.
[Zachariah] It says a lot.
[Graeme] Yeah.
[Megan] It seems like you're able to take any situation and not just make the best of it, but also make it feel productive and keep interested and that's really impressive.
[Graeme] Yeah, I've been...
I think I've always been busy.
I hate not doing anything.
Even down to just being at home.
I can't sit with a pile of dishes or the laundry not done, or stuff like that.
It's like, if there's something that needs to be done, I will go and do it and take care of it.
And then that means that if those things are done...
This is going to get into some sort of crazy metaphor stuff now, alright?
[Megan] Bring it on!
[Graeme] If those little things are done, they're not weighing on your mind.
So now your mind is free to think about the next big things.
[Zachariah] Yeah.
[Graeme] Like, clean out all the crap and focus on on the good stuff that's left.
Maybe that's a key thing.
[laughs] Do the dishes.
[Zachariah] Yeah, do the dishes.
[Megan] That's really great advice, though.
[Zachariah] So, as you're going along in life, how did you make that distinction between following this curiosity and this passion, and balancing it with, "Well, I have to make a career "out of this" and things like that?
[Graeme] This is going to sound odd, but I'm still almost waiting for when I'm going to grow up.
[laughs] I look at myself now and working here at Surfline...
I guess I have a career at Surfline.
It doesn't feel like it.
I just enjoy what I do so much.
But maybe that's just the way I deal with things.
It's much more...
I create the environment where something is going to happen for me.
[Megan] How?
[Graeme] I don't know.
[Megan laughing] [Megan] I want to do that.
[Graeme] I guess, what I've done is, everything I've done, I've tried to do the best I can.
I think that passion comes through and people realize that.
I'm a self-taught programmer, so I'm not formally trained in writing surf forecasting software.
The thing I always did is, I stuck with it.
I just held out the hope...
I'm an incredibly optimistic person.
That's always paid off.
Just hoping and hoping and hoping that the right thing will happen, and it kind of does.
Or something better will come along, or something different, and you just tack a little bit one way or the other and end up where you want to be.
Maybe you just haven't figured out which little Road you're going to take or whatever.
I don't think it matters which one you take, honestly, because they'll all end up being the right one.
[Zachariah] Thank you so much.
[Zachariah] Woohoo!
Wow!
That was awesome!
Could we have a group hug?
Would you mind that?
Let's bring it in!
Yeah!
[Megan] He was just so personable and natural and that gave me a lot of confidence for going into these interviews.
This was a nice test for me.
Even if I don't understand everything he does, I can understand him.
[Jackie] "Do the dishes."
[Zachariah] Yeah!
Right on!
[Graeme] Stick it over the sink in the kitchen.
[Zachariah] That's fantastic!
[Jackie] Yes, that's awesome!
[Zachariah] Yes!
[Megan] That feels important.
[Zachariah] It was really awesome how he supported a lot of the things that I deep down feel and know, but there's all this information around me to try to convince me that the world isn't a great place.
I'm really excited to go through these interviews and continue to reaffirm that.
[Graeme] So, I hear you're going on your first surf tomorrow.
So none of you have ever surfed before?
[Zachariah] I've boogie-boarded, but I've never surfed.
[Graeme] Okay, don't tell anybody that.
[Megan laughing] [Graeme] And we're going into metaphor land again.
Two pieces of advice the first time you're ever on a surfboard: Always look over your shoulder, so you see where the wave is behind you.
And when you think you've got the wave, give it one more stroke.
[Zachariah] Oh...okay, okay.
That is very metaphorical.
[Graeme laughing] [Zachariah] The contrast in my expectation and the reality of once I got here is that the whole time I've had this Google Map view of this maze, but now that I'm in it, all I can see is that next experience.
And it's taught me that there really isn't some thing that I'm going to achieve.
There's no route that I'm going to go to find myself, or something.
I'm just in an environment that's totally foreign to me and is just rocking me so hard.
Yes!
There's no end point.
We get to these interviews, and we go to these interviews, and we go to these interviews.
I'll get all the way here, and it will be my last interview, and it's not even close to being over at that point.
It's just getting started.
[Jackie] Here we go!
Woo!
♪ [Zachariah] Ever since I gotten here, it's just profound moment after profound moment.
[female #1] If I never get to the finish line, if I'm poor, what one thing is still going to be worth having done?
[female #2] Do not wait for somebody to hand it to you.
Do not wait for somebody to come along and say, "Hey, like, go get it."
[Megan] We are going to take a zipline tour of the redwood canopies.
[female #3] Life is unfolding before you.
It's about having experiences so that you can know what you want to be about.
[female narrator #4] Roadtrip Nation extends beyond the program you just watched.
It's a movement that empowers students to define their own Roads in life.
Here's a quick snapshot of the Roadtrip Nation experience at Big Ideas Fest.
[student #1] My name is Rubeen Salem.
I'm a sophomore at South San Francisco High School.
[student #2] We're here at the Big Ideas Fest 2012.
Going to interview speakers that have gone through the paths that we're going to take to see how they got there.
[student #3] I hope that they can give me some really good advice on how to deal with everything.
[student #4] I don't know what I want to go into, that's the thing.
[student #5] Whether or not I want to go to college.
[Rubeen] Ways to like block the obstacles.
[student #6] How did they overcome all that stuff?
[student #4] 'Cause I kind of feel like I'm drowning a little.
[student #7] Where were you when you were our age and how have you gotten to where you are now?
There's just so many inspirational people.
They're all different, but at the same time, they're united through having that passion that makes them successful.
[female #1] The things about you now, that make you a little bit uncomfortable or make you quirky, but the things that you really like about yourself... hang on to them and don't let them be squashed.
[student #8] One thing I learned is that you can do anything.
So I'm going to try not limiting myself.
[Rubeen] Life-changing.
[camera man #1] Really?
[Rubeen] Yeah.
It made me think that there was hope.
I didn't really believe in hope.
♪ [female narrator #5] If you're living a life you love, and want to share your story with the next generation, or if you're looking to define your own Road, head to Roadtripnation.com to join the movement.
♪
