Photo courtesy Yasmin Dar
One of the toughest growing pains a young adult can endure is handling the internal tussle of truly figuring out what path you’d like to walk on a professional level. Even heightened intellect, beauty and motivation can’t help alleviate that personal paradox.
Take Yasmin Dar, for example. She was raised to be that next brilliant doctor. She put years into her studies, but at that almost-certain point of commitment she realized it just wasn’t for her.
“Just before the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) I got this panic attack, and I knew right there it wasn’t the career for me. It was heartbreaking. I worked very hard and knew it would crush my parents, but said to myself, ‘I’m going to prove to them I can still be very successful,’” says Dar, who has been a member of the KITV4 This Morning team as traffic anchor since 2009. “When I was younger I used to idolize woman anchors on television and secretly desired to be like that.”
After her decision to default on the MCAT examination, Dar took a couple years to soul search. She then began to utilize her strengths in the communications field, as she had been a member of the speech and debate team at Aiea High School, and also gained modeling and acting experience in college, as well as co-hosting with Jordan Segundo, Destination Groove Dance Hawaii in 2007. While obtaining her master’s degree in communications at UH-Manoa, Dar was hired by KITV4.
“After interning at a television station, I knew this is where I needed to be. I loved it. It didn’t feel like work,” says Dar, who was featured on MidWeek‘s cover Sept. 21, 2007.
Expanding her role as traffic anchor, Dar also has helped create her own segment, which highlights the growth of social media as it balloons into a foundation for news reporting and marketing functionality. Social Wire, hosted by Dar, focuses on new emerging technologies and their practical use in our daily lives. Social Wire also features trending technological topics, an app of the week, and entertains live interviews with students and start-up company representatives promoting unique and original projects and initiatives.
“The whole social media movement has helped us (news media) get our second wind back and take that spotlight where people really need us. It’s there to service the people in everyday life, and certainly my job,” says Dar, who encourages commuters to check her early-morning traffic tweets on twitter: @YasminDar.
With the help of entertainment manager Nancy Bernal, Dar has landed appearances on LOST, Off The Map and Hawaii Five-0. “Acting is definitely still an interest of mine. I continuously go out to audition. We’re really lucky to have these Hollywood productions in Hawaii, allowing local talent to exercise what they’ve learned all these years,” adds Dar, who has plans to marry Sal Fasi, son of the late Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi, in December.
If you can’t catch Dar on the KITV4 morning show, you can keep up with her on virtually every social media platform including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, with which she proudly professes she is obsessed.