Kapaa High School students came all the way from Kauai to indulge themselves in their Early College Summit at Chaminade, which gives students a chance to discover and explore their passions and academic interests while getting a taste of college life. This past Thursday, Kapaa Juniors and Seniors with a total of 28 students, had the opportunity to tour and do some activities like seeing the freshman dorms and seeing different classrooms on campus, led by graduate Noelani Tugaoen and Chaminade students.
“These opportunities are a huge part of student development,” said Kahele Keawe, the Kapaa college counselor who attended the Summit with the students. “It’s something students really look forward to and a major milestone in the program.”
This past Thursday came as an early start for these next up college students as some of them had to be up as early for their 6:48 A.M flight. They started their day a little welcome breakfast and ice breakers meeting students from other schools and then got an official welcome at about 8:25 A.M. They were then led into two different groups and shown to the freshman dorms (Hale Lokelani) and the Crime Scene house towards the top of campus.
The students were then brought back down to the Ching Conference Center waiting for some of the other students to return got to meet some of their spring 2026 professors such as Laura Johnston and Patrick Block.
After meeting with their 2026 spring semester professor, all the students stayed for their table talk meeting about Chaminade’s academic programs and student resources for the next hour, then went into lunch.
Once lunch was over they were then split into groups to see two of three aspects: Meet College Athlete Students- discuss what it took to be an athlete and what life is like, Tour the Nursing Labs- walk through the nursing labs and witness the hight-tech manikin, and student engagement- talk to the students who run the extracurricular activities. The students returned by about 2:20 P.M. and were supposed to go the bookstore, but everyone was ready to head to Ala Moana Shopping Center. After a few hours at Ala Moana Shopping Center, they were taken back to the airport for their 7:48 P.M. departure.
This is the third time that Kapa’a has done it at Chaminade University. Keawe also added on that this is great experience for the students to see the dorms and some different aspects of certain majors, from seeing the Crime scene housein the Forensics department to seeing nursing classrooms in the nursing department.
Kapaa Senior Siena Yamashita talked about her experience and how last year was better for her and that there was more to do and not as much this year. For Yamashita, it seemed like there was just more engagement between her as a student last year than it was than is this year’s Early College Summit.
“Last time we did a lot more activities,” she said “We played games to get to know people in our cohort and other cohorts, and we spent more time doing hands-on activities, especially in the nursing department.”
On the other hand, other senior Brody Kapali enjoyed it more this year than he did last year. His experience felt more engaging and that there was a little bit more emphasis on wanting students to go to Chaminade.
“Last year was more of a general campus tour, and it didn’t really match what I’m interested in,” Kapali said. “This year, the forensic science activities really caught my attention and felt like something I could actually see myself doing.”
The students rounded the day off by going to Ala Moana Shopping Center and walking around for a few hours then, later getting dropped off later that night. It was a long day for the students and the teachers, but as Keawe mentioned earlier, it was a great opportunity for student development.