THE MOMENT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

It was Labor Day, it was raining, and HPU alumna Camilla Nicholas ‘01 had nowhere to stay. She and her two friends had just stepped out of a cab in Kailua, suitcases in hand, when the driver turned back toward them with unexpected news. There are no hotels in Kailua.

“Where to next?” the driver asked.

Nicholas didn’t have an answer. Years later, it remains the kind of moment that invites reflection, the kind that makes you wonder how many lives are quietly reshaped by a single, unplanned decision far from home.

Nicholas grew up outside of Gothenburg, Sweden, in a blue-collar family where college was not top of mind. Her mother worked as a cashier, her father as a salesman in a television and radio shop, and neither had attended university. Nicholas would ultimately become the first in her family to earn a degree, though her path was anything but conventional.

At 18, she enrolled in a technical college in Gothenburg to study computer programming, only to leave after a single day. “I went home and told my parents, ‘college is not for me,’” she recalls.

Instead, she and her best friend made a different plan: work, save money, and travel. For two years, they lived at home and put aside what they could, building toward a shared goal of seeing the world.

“The plan was for her and me to go to California,” Nicholas says. “Back then, there was no home computer. We watched TV shows like 90210 and Melrose Place and saw the sun—California. In our heads, we would stay for six months, buy a car, and drive around. It sounded like an adventure.” A third friend later joined them on the adventure, with one request, to stop in Hawaiʻi first.

Nicholas and her two friends arrived on Oʻahu with no reservations or plans and made their way along the Pali Highway to a beach town they knew only by name.

“Where do you want to go?” the driver said, patiently idling in the soft Kailua rain.

With nowhere else to go, Nicholas decided on instinct.

“Let us out at that Pizza Hut,” she told the driver.

Inside, with suitcases between the booths, the workers greeted the three friends with curiosity and kindness, and what began as a simple conversation quickly turned into something more. Within hours, the three young women had secured a house to rent in Kailua.

“Now that I think about it,” Nicholas reflects, “if we never went to that Pizza Hut, maybe my entire life would have been different.”

The group remained in Kailua for several weeks before deciding to explore the south shore. In Waikiki, they found housing the only way they could then, by scanning newspaper listings and calling from a pay phone until someone answered. They eventually connected with a woman renting units on Kuhio Avenue and settled into a small apartment. They never made it to California and what was meant to be a six-month stay became a cycle. They left, returned, and then returned again, drawn back by the same feeling that Hawaiʻi had more to offer.

“Hawaiʻi is wonderful. The sun, the beauty of the islands,” Nicholas says. “Coming from a place like Sweden, where there is darkness for seven months out of the year, it is radically different. It was so beautiful, and we loved it. We could not get enough.”

On her fourth trip, in 1997, Nicholas returned to Hawaiʻi alone. Her friends had stayed in Sweden, and her parents offered a suggestion that would shift her path once again: if she planned to return to Hawaiʻi, she should consider pursuing a college education there. Nicholas had previously met representatives from HPU in Gothenburg, and the idea had stayed with her.

Nicholas began her studies at HPU at 23, entering as a nontraditional student who was ready to commit. Initially pursuing hotel management, she explored several academic directions before finding her place in human resource development, guided by an academic counselor who helped her identify the right fit. She took classes on Fort Street Mall while working in HPU’s administrative offices, gaining experience across departments and becoming deeply connected to the campus community. “I went to class, went to work, and I was able to do both,” she says. “They were so accommodating.”

Her academic experience was both challenging and transformative. “I had a big dictionary with me and translated words all the time,” Nicholas says. “That was tough, but I learned a lot. I was always doing public speaking in English, and we didn’t do that in Sweden. That really helped me grow and mature.”

Beyond the classroom, it was the environment that left a lasting impression. “The small class sizes were fantastic. I felt like the professors cared about us,” she says. “It was not massive, just the right size. I knew I would never get lost at HPU.” She also found a sense of community she had not experienced before. “There was a family-oriented environment that I was not really used to in Sweden,” Nicholas adds. “People treat you like family at HPU, both at work and when studying.”

Nicholas married her husband Ronald, a member of the U.S. military, in 1998 and continued her studies while living on Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi. In her junior year, the military moved them and she completed part of her coursework at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. This was managed without missing a credit through the militaries satellite program, with HPU ensuring a seamless path to graduation. She earned her bachelor’s degree in 2001, summa cum laude, completing a journey that began with uncertainty but ended with a milestone that meant everything to her and her family.

After graduation, Nicholas worked in human resources in Jacksonville, North Carolina for a few years before eventually returning to Hawaiʻi. There, her former HPU supervisor Amy Blagriff (and now lifelong friend), reached out with a job opportunity at AIA Honolulu, an example of how the relationships she built at HPU continued to shape her career long after graduation.

Nicholas accepted the position and has remained with the organization for more than two decades, now serving as assistant director. Her role spans communications, sponsorships, events, and operations, reflecting both the versatility of her degree and the breadth of her experience. “My degree really helped me in each industry I went into, because it is versatile,” she says.

For the past 15 years, Nicholas has lived in California, where her family relocated for the last time through the military. Much of her work has been done remotely, allowing her to be present with her children while continuing to grow professionally. Despite the distance, Hawaiʻi remains a constant in her life. She returns regularly for major events and maintains strong ties to the community that first welcomed her decades ago.

Above her desk hangs a photograph of the islands and her HPU diploma. It is a quiet reminder of the place where everything changed, where a spontaneous decision, made on a rainy afternoon with nowhere to go, became the beginning of a life she could not have imagined.

“I still say happy aloha Friday,” Nicholas says. “ʻOhana means everything. HPU and Hawaiʻi will always hold a special place in my heart.”