Featured Fellow: Keauhou Mitchell Aldan shares her experience balancing full-time work, graduate school, and childcare in a post-COVID world.

During a panel discussion last April titled, Staying Motivated through COVID-19, Keauhou Mitchell-Aldan shared how sticking to a routine kept her and her family on track during unprecedented times. Fast forward two months, Keauhou’s life looks a bit different. Her children are done with homeschool, and routines have flown out the window. Through it all, Keauhou remains positive and is on track to graduate this fall from her Masters in Indigenous Education program. In an interview with Fellowship & Professional Development Coordinator, Sara Kim, Keauhou shares a few of her signature laughs along with a new strategy to stay motivated.

Can you describe your work/Home and school balance?

Keauhou: There is no balance. I think how I’m able to manage my current situation is by making a list, and checking things off of that list everyday. I think that’s what keeps me going but, there’s really no time limit, things come up and you just have to address them when they come up. But I think making a list is probably the way I get through things.

How has grad school changed for you?

Keauhou: COVID allowed us to have more time but yet I feel like my school work kind of suffered. I still don’t really understand why, but I just wasn’t as engaged. I still got my work done, but I just wasn’t as engaged with it, I’m not sure why, it’s kind of odd. Maybe it’s because it’s almost the end of my grad program and so that’s just the funk that you get into.

But I really think COVID kind of had an effect on everything. I think that the uncertainty of everything kind of made school uncertain, even though it was kind of a for-sure thing.

Writing your thesis is something new this semester, are you excited for that?

Keauhou: No [laughs]. Actually, I kind of am, I just, I think I will do really well once I get my topic, right now it’s still a bunch of topics and that’s kind of scary to me, it’s kind of freaking me out. But I think once I hold down a topic then I can just run with it.

Are you a person that does better under pressure?

Keauhou: Oh yeah, I have a paper that’s due on Thursday, I haven’t even started it. Because I like the adrenaline and waiting until the last minute. And I also think I produce really good work, I do that for some odd reason. I love the anxiety [laughs]. But that’s just me, people probably think I’m insane.

Before I was like, ‘Oh my. . . I hated my life, my life was so stressful.’ I literally had to go from Point A, to Point B, to Point C, to Point D and never really had time to breathe. But now, I’m like, ‘Oh my Gosh but it gave me structure!’

It told me that I had to go to work from this time to this time, it told me that I had to pick up my kids from this time to this time, it told me that I had to do homework at this time and this time, and it told me that I had to get dinner ready, and I had to do my homework at this time and on this day.

It [my schedule] gave me structure. Now it’s just a big ocean! And I can do whatever I want in this ocean, and giving myself my own structure is I think more difficult.

So I’m looking forward to going back to normal, for work and school schedules. But I don’t think it’ll be like that in the upcoming year. So I’m going to have to get used to making my own schedule, and making it stick, and work for me.

Has the meaning of your graduation changed for you since the pandemic?

Keauhou: Because I am a distance learner, I always knew the possibility of me not actually walking on my graduation was an option. I don’t know if I was going to be able to do it. So I think graduation more for me was about finally getting my degree.

I think it’s [a degree] valuable, even after the pandemic. Even if I walk or not, I’m still trying to reach my goal of graduating and getting my Master’s degree. I don’t think the pandemic has changed that, I think it’s just changed my current mental and emotional state.

I think if it really did affect me that much [the pandemic], then I would have just dropped out of school. But graduation is important.

I’m well aware of the stress level that I’ve come under since the pandemic. I’m well aware of, not only my own situation, but my family, my friends and the world, and the effects that it’s had. That can be draining, a mental and emotional strain. I’m aware of it and I think that’s kind of why like I’m in a lull, I was very excited before.

I was excited to learn, excited to do my papers, but now it’s kind of well, we’re all in this situation, so should I be excited about something when the rest of the world isn’t?

A masters degree is really something I want to achieve, so that’s why I’m sticking with it. I think as far as others, and how they feel, it’s just, what are your goals? If your goals are something that you want, and want to achieve, then nothing will stop you. You still have to do it!

It’s important to know yourself, and it’s okay, you will go through stresses and it’s okay to be emotionally drained and it’s okay to be mentally affected by the world. We are animals of our environment, so it’s only right for us to feel that way. But if we don’t acknowledge those feelings, then we suppress them.

In the Talk Story, you mentioned how important sticking to a schedule has been in order to stay motivated through COVID, has your technique changed at all or evolved into anything else?

Keauhou: I remember that Talk Story, and I did! I had a schedule, and my children had a schedule, and then I don’t know what happened. One day, we had to do something, or we had to go somewhere, something big happened, and it threw off the schedule and to get back on the schedule, it just wasn’t working.

I think ‘cause at that point when I did the Talk Story, life was like okay this is how life is going to be, so you can make a schedule. But then so much has happened, between then and now that I can’t keep to that schedule.

What’s working for me [now] is creating lists and just being able to check them off as I go and as long as I feel like I’m checking something off every day then I feel like I’m productive.

I think that’s what’s helping me now. As far as a schedule, I just know that everyday is different, and so it’s hard to stick to one.

How do you plan on celebrating graduation?

Keauhou: It’s still kind of sad for me, before there was always a possibility that I could go to Arizona and actually walk. Now, I’m realizing that’s not a possibility anymore.

I can’t think about it [celebrating] yet, I have to be half way through my thesis before I can think about that stuff. Celebration is not in my mind just yet. It’s like a mental strategy, don’t even think about celebrating and being happy yet [laughs].

Keauhou comments on the importance of mental health and checking in with yourself.

I do want the article to encourage others and not deter them from their goals. Acknowledging your problems, acknowledging your frustration, acknowledging your issues, it’s just that initial steps and being like, ‘Okay, I know I feel like this, but I can still accomplish what I need to do.’

Acknowledging that you are feeling down but still you need to finish. Otherwise you’re feeling like, ‘Come on! Just push yourself, just push yourself!’ and you’re not acknowledging what’s wrong with you or why you aren’t doing well.

You end up beating yourself up for it. I think some people can acknowledge their feelings, but then not encourage themselves like I do. You could be like, ‘I do suck at writing, so I’m not going to finish this paper.’ That’s a different mind set.

Keauhou emphasizes the importance of changing up your mind set when things aren’t working and why she is goal oriented.

Keauhou: The reason why I enjoy reaching my goals is because I feel good at the end. But that only works with school and with work, not exercise [laughs].

The Shared Services Center is focused on highlighting the accomplishments of the Title III Fellows over the summer through a weekly article published on the Title III Ohana site called, Featured Fellows. To learn more about Fellowships please contact Professional Development & Fellowship Coordinator, Sara Kim at sjohashi@hawaii.edu.

Related posts:

• Title III Fellowship Program
• Symposium: Staying Motivated through COVID-19 (Video)
• Second Title III Fellows Symposium Highlights Creating a Sense of Place for Native Hawaiian Students
• Inaugural Symposium Highlights Native Hawaiian Student Success
• Symposium: Ka Wa Mā Hope: The Future is in Back of Us