Author: Lexus Yamashiro

Joshua Orimoto is in his third year at KCC and an early admit at UH Mānoa through it’s Air Force ROTC program. Majoring in Liberal Arts, Orimoto chose the Air Force because his grandfather was once in it, and for the financial benefits that he can use toward college tuition. During his free time, Orimoto enjoys flying drones to make videos.

(Noah) Gi Don Kang is a first year student attending KCC majoring in Korean. He is full Korean, and after living in Korea for 11 years, he moved to Hawaiʻi nine years ago and graduated from Kalani High School. Kang said that he originally planned to attend UH, however, since he didn’t have his green card at the time, he said it was much easier for him to start off at KCC. Now that he has his green card, he plans on transferring to UH Mānoa for the Fall 2017 semester to get into the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM).

“I think that KCC is just a very family oriented [place],” Kang said. “Everyone kind of knows each other and … the environment is really nice because everyone’s just so nice to each other and so helpful.”

Ben Browning is a second-year student attending KCC. He transferred from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, where he studied kinesiology during his first year. Now at KCC, Browning says that family is what influenced him the most to attend college. He comes from a background where most of his family have attended college, to which he said they are all happy that he has chosen to attend school. Browning values learning new things and is considering majoring in Political Science after taking an American studies course.

With the travel ban that President Trump has signed into executive order, Browning said he stands against it as he believes that it will create mistrusts between the United States and other countries.

“Once you start giving certain freedoms up for security, it leads to more freedoms being lost,” Browning said.

Politics aside, Browning said that he hopes that the campus will allow students to get around with skateboards since he does so himself. He said it’s convenient for him to get to and from classes via his skateboard, but will often get told to stop since it’s not allowed. As a “shout out” to the skateboarding community, he hopes that the campus will be more accepting of skateboarders.