By Peter Lennihan, Associated Press
Guests watch Saturday's performance at MIT Hawaii Club's
Fourth Annual Lu'au in Cambridge, Mass.
Local E.Coast
students lament
isle job market
Most will remain on the mainland
By Rob Perez
for lack of money and opportunity
Star-BulletinCAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- These are young people who clearly want to come home, some desperately so.
But the way they see it, they can't. Or they won't. Not just yet.
Are you from Hawaii, but living somewhere else? Email us at braindrain@starbulletin.com to tell us your views on why you moved away, what might lead you to return and what Hawaii can do to retain its 'best and brightest.'
Calling
Hawaii
expatriates
We'll present a digest of your responses in a later edition.
Over the weekend about 100 Hawaii students attending prestigious East Coast universities gathered here at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to talk about the prospects of one day returning to the islands.
Many who graduate next month say they would love to come back immediately. But most say they'll be going elsewhere, typically for two reasons.
Money. And opportunity.
The islands, they say, are short on both.
Angie Nishimoto's case is not unusual.
The 22-year-old Mililani High School graduate gets her master's degree in electrical engineering and computer sciences from MIT next month. She already has accepted a $57,000-a-year job with a California high-tech company, which came to campus to recruit workers. No Hawaii employers did likewise.
Nishimoto said she asked people in Hawaii, including her former boss from a summer job at the Army Corps of Engineers, about the chances of getting good work in the islands.
Their answers were disheartening.
"They told me, 'Don't come back,'" Nishimoto said. "My old boss said I'll make so much more money on the mainland and have many more opportunities."
Money. Opportunity.
Those themes were repeated throughout the weekend as the students gathered to talk story about Hawaii's economy, which has lost jobs the last six years. At a symposium hosted by the MIT Hawaii Club, the students were told the job market shows few signs of improving, though some sectors are doing better than others.
That the students' discussions were often couched in financial terms wasn't surprising.
After spending easily more than $100,000 for educations at some of the nation's top universities, these students expect some paybacks. Saddled with thousands of dollars of college debt, some have little choice but to follow the money.
And the paths they take can reflect startling differences. Several Hawaii students said companies in the nation's financial and high-tech centers have offered them salaries in the $50,000-to-$80,000 range.
Iolani grad gets last laugh
In Hawaii, even if comparable work is available -- and often it isn't -- the pay would be far less.Nishimoto said she probably would earn in the $30,000s or low $40,000s if she went back to Hawaii right away.
Once people start working, the gap can grow even wider.
Chris Chung, 29, a University of Hawaii graduate working on a law degree at New York University, said his salary as a real estate mortgage specialist at Lehman Brothers in New York is probably 2 times what he could be making in Hawaii.
In addition, Chung said, he is working in the financial capital of the world -- experience he could not match in Hawaii.
Some students don't even get to the money issues before they rule out returning to Hawaii.
John Tagawa, 26, who graduates next month with a master's degree in business administration and engineering from MIT, said he contacted several employment agencies about returning to Hawaii.
When the 1990 Iolani graduate described the type of management positions he was interested in, "People laughed at me," Tagawa said. They told him he lacked sufficient management experience.
Tagawa didn't even get to tell the headhunters he would be willing to settle for a salary much less than he could earn on the mainland. "I would go home and work and live in my dad's garage if I could get" the right job, he said.
Tagawa subsequently accepted a position as a manager with Qualcomm, a San Diego high-tech company.
Returning likened to defeat
For some students, Hawaii is not on their short list because they want to gain experience elsewhere before going home. They say they want to broaden their exposure to other places, to other people, to other cultures.Some who have attended private schools their whole lives even frown upon returning to Hawaii right away.
From an educational and employment perspective, "We find it difficult to consider Hawaii as prestigious, as fast-paced, as exciting as the mainland," said Andrew Ho, 21, who graduates next month with a neuroscience degree from Brown University in Rhode Island.
"I think going back home is taking the easy way out," the 1995 Punahou graduate said. "It's almost like admitting defeat." Ho plans to teach at a California boarding school for a year before starting graduate work at Stanford University.
If the students were only interested in making a lot of money, they probably should stick with the mainland offers, the symposium speakers advised them. Pay, the students were told, will almost always be lower in Hawaii, especially when compared with salaries in major markets such as New York and Silicon Valley.
"It's just a fact of life," said Yuka Nagashima, president of LavaNet, which provides Internet access to Hawaii computer users.
'Sometimes you get lucky'
But if the students were interested in trying to use their skills to better Hawaii, then they could consider the lower pay as a trade-off for attributes -- such as lifestyle, climate and the aloha spirit -- that are unmatched elsewhere, the speakers said.A few students indicated they were ready -- even anxious -- to accept such trade-offs.
Wesley Ueoka, 21, considers himself lucky to be heading back to Maui. The 1995 Maui High School graduate has landed a job with ThermoTrix, a maker of biomedical instruments, and plans to start next month when he graduates from MIT. Ueoka is receiving a degree in electrical engineering and computer sciences.
He said his ThermoTrix salary would be considered average for MIT graduates in his field.
"Sometimes you just get lucky," Ueoka said. "From the moment I first stepped off the plane (my freshman year), I knew I wanted to go home after graduation."
Isles 'my home, community'
James Koshiba, 26, who is pursuing a master's in public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, likewise plans to head home after his schooling.The 1991 Punahou graduate says he knows he'll be making far less in Hawaii. But that doesn't matter. "Hawaii's my home, my community. That's the place I want to do my work."
Other students who aren't yet graduating or initially plan to work on the mainland say they worry that Hawaii's economy will still be weak when they're ready to come home. Or they worry that the job market will still be dominated by lesser-paying service positions.
Advice for state's economy
The students were concerned enough that they developed recommendations during the symposium on how to boost the economy.Most were general in nature, such as pursuing community-based economic development or capitalizing on the strengths that make Hawaii unique.
One group of Brown University students said they created a special class this semester on the Hawaii economy, and their final project will include economic revitalization recommendations.
Symposium speakers told the students that whenever they return home, they shouldn't expect finding a job to come easy.
"Don't look for other people to make opportunities for you," said Kevin Haseyama, senior vice president of Kamakura Corp., an international financial advisory firm based in Manoa.
‘It comes down
By Rob Perez
to how much you
love the islands’
Star-BulletinQuotes from Hawaii students and former isle residents on the mainland:
"Everybody has that dream of returning home." -- Steven Wong, 21, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior who is taking a job in San Francisco after graduation
