Hi I'm Raphaella.

Hi everyone. My name is Raphaella Abad and I should be a senior this semester and graduating next semester but, because I'm a transfer student many of my credits did not transfer and because I had to take a semester off I basically had to restart all over again. Fun right? Anyway, my main goal right now is to graduate soon and get started on what I'd like to do in the future. On the first day of this class when Prof. Caciolo asked us to say a little about ourselves I had mentioned that I was an International Broadcast Journalism major but, honestly I've kept on saying that because I've gotten so comfortable in that position. At first, I did want to do broadcast journalism (I added the word "international" for my own liking but it's not part of the major haha, I just want to work overseas one day!) Furthermore, As the semesters kept on flying by I was steering myself in another direction, a path that was on my mind and I never actually said it because I didn't know how to say it. The new name of my major is "digital" journalism. I'm more than sure that this is not really a major but, once again I created my own major :) and the reason why I do this is because for now I think I'm considering being just a plain journalism major but the path I want to take with my major when I do narrow it down is more like digital journalism. The reason why I say this is because I didn't know how to say it before but when Prof. Caciolo was telling me about broadcasting she had mentioned "podcasting" which really caught my attention. I knew what podcasts were at the moment but then I realized that maybe what I wanted to do was not "broadcast" it was "podcast". This is something that I've had on my head for many many years and thought of actually wanting to pursue for a while now. However, I always thought it was part of broadcast journalism so that's why I never really changed the name of my major but, this is the direction I want my career to go in.

My overall academic goals right now are to graduate with really good grades and land an amazing internship. When I first declared my major I always said I wanted to intern for NBC, especially the today show. This is something that Greg and I use to talk about all the time we use to tell each other that we would end up working together on the today show and we both were striving for that same goal. However things have slowly changed for me and now I'm pursuing another dream of mine. This personal project I'm working on now is something that I've been planning on doing for so long now even before I started my college career and before I graduated high school. This is something that I've thought to do for many years but because of personal problems never did and now that I'm in a new chapter  in my life I think it's the right time to pursue it. In my opinion I strongly believe the news and our journalism careers are going to develop into the digital world. I think our journalism careers are going to be related to the web. With new technology arising it's becoming more popular to have blogs, writing online for famous newspapers and magazines or doing podcasts. The media world is involved with all journalism careers because we are the media. In addition, I love traveling and wish I'd do it more often. I love learning about new cultures, languages, music, customs and different lifestyles. I love sports especially soccer, tennis and, swimming. One of my passions is makeup (it's more of an obsession... always has been). Makeup is a different form of art but, its art for your face and I love it. Playing with different colors, textures, and creating new looks is something I highly enjoy. The art of transforming as I like to call it. I remember my high school days were all about fashion to the point that all I wanted to do was be a buyer and study fashion merchandising/ import and export business at FIT. It was the only school I applied to after I graduated and thanks to my not so good SAT scores I did not get accepted. It was one of the most depressing days of my life because I didn't get into the only school I had applied for. Having generations of women in my family studying fashion and going to fashion school I became stressed. I went to another school where my english prof. suggested I'd pursue journalism because of my writing and this is where I am now, loving middle eastern poetry. :)

P.S. I love traveling!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQFYFCWXkCI

My favorite team :)))