Ciao Everyone! It is nice to meet you all, My name is Rachel Marie-Elizabeth DePietro, but you can all just call me Rachel. This is the first real time I have blogged. I tried to use one of those livejournals when I was in high school, but that is about it. So I hope that I can get into the swing of this.
Now let’s see, I am 22 years old, I just turned 22 on June 5th it was a wonderful birthday that I got to send with my friends and family. I am in my 5th year of school, so I hues that makes me a Super Senior. Though, this summer is my last semester of school, yep that’s right I graduate in August. I am excited . . . and in all truth I am scared as all get out. As the time of graduation draws near I am approached with the question of “What are you going to do when you are done?” If I were to answer truthfully after I recover from that “Dear in the Headlights” moment, I reply to them that I really don t know what I want to do and in all honesty what 20 year person does, am I right? One thing I do know is I am on the right path to finding what I want to do thanks to the BIS program. Thanks to this field of study I have faith that my dreams and passion can be combined with real work experience and bless me with a job I will love.
It is so great that we are all BIS students, one reason being you don’t get that confused puppy look that most get when you say you are a Bachelors of Interdisciplinary Studies major. So since we can side step the explanation of what a BIS major is I am just going to jump into what my focuses are. They are Creative Writing and Communication. The reason I chose Creative Writing and Communication comes from the fact that at one point I had four Majors, those being Creative Writing, Theater, Communications, and Studio Art. I started by getting my AA Degree in Theater and Creative Writing. Thanks to GCC I fell in love with writing it became so much more to me than I had ever imagined it being. So I went off to UofA in the hopes of getting my Bachelor’s Degree in Theater and Creative Writing. So, something happened along the way and I ending up dropping Theater keeping Creative Writing and then adding Studio Art. It seems like a crazy jump yeah? Well to me it was so perfect. I took a communication class at GCC I loved it I want to learn more, but it wasn’t as important as writing was to me. Thus I was only going to have it as a minor, but after taking one more class in Commutations I was hooked and want to dive head first into the study of communication. Once I finally made it to ASU I knew what I want to do and that is how I got studying Creative Writing and Communications.
How these two focuses Creative Writing and Communication descried my personality is a hard and easy question at the same time. First let’s start with Communications, for what I have been told I was always a vocal child, even when I was a baby, I started talking when I was 6 months old. Though if you know me in person you would say just like my family does, that being, I started talking early and apparently those first 6 months is the only time my parents got any peace and quiet, because from then on I never stopped talking (seriously I even sleep talk, crazy right). Also I have always wondered about words, where they come from who decided that an orange was an orange? I think that was also a leeway into writing, because no matter what if it is fiction or truth there is a story to be told about everything. I loved to read I have to read every day or my poor little brain gets anxious. I think I love thinking up stories as much as I love reading them. I can’t even get tattoos without them having a story behind them.
Onto my Applied Studies, I am very thankful to be working at a Non-Profit Organization called Future for Kids. We are an after school program for at risk children. Our home base is in Scottsdale, but our after school programs are all around the valley. I am hoping to come away for this experience with the ability to understand board room procedures and writing grant proposals. Those are the surface facts that I hope to understand, but deeper I want to know how team work and hope help propel a nonprofit company. Also I think that what drew me to this place was the ability to make a difference in a child’s life, I want so much to inspire kids the way my teachers inspired. I am blessed with chance to be able to teach the kids the art of storytelling, I was so excited when I found that out I thought of all the teachers from my past and remember what they showed me to be an art, a passion, and beauty.
So far I have been able to contribute to Future for Kids by being a coordinator for one charity event and on sports event for the children. I have been in control of media coverage for a Charity Haunted House that is holding a preview night in June, but will be in full swing in the fall. Then on June 12th we are hold a free sports camp for kids ages 8 to 14. I have been in control of receiving and contacting kids who are going to be attending the camp. It has been amazing realizing how many kids are so excited to attend and be a part of this exciting experience. Also many of the sports affiliate associated with camp are from ASU, we even are having a visit from Sparky. Lastly I am in charge of the companies Newsletter and Website. I am so excited to be able to have this chance to work with my writing skills and use it to help our company gain more notice and more supporters.
In all truth the most fighten thought is that I don’t know what I fuuly want to do when I am done with school. I am not sure if I want to stay in nonprofit, but I do know that I want to write. I want to write everything I see and experience. Life is something beautiful and every moment is something that is worth living and seeing. So the ability to share experience with the world is very important to me and the ability to communication those stories is just as important.
I am excited, scared and, looking forward to what the future holds. We may not always know what the future holds, but as long as you learn from the past, enjoy the present, and hope for the future then you will have the strength to face anything that life has to throw at you. I am so excited that we have been offered the chance to look at life through and interdisciplinary aspect. It gives us a whole new way to experience life. I want to say good luck to everyone at their applied studies site and I hope everyone enjoys what it has to teach them.
Hi Rachel,
ReplyDeleteThe font that you are using in your blog is too dark for me to read (and see if you have any of those evil typos that I know stress you out). In the future can you use a lighter colored font? I saw bright pick on an earlier blog that I read with a black background and that seemed to work okay. Either that or white would work. I have had 401 students work for Future for Kids in the past and they too had good experiences. I am glad to hear that they are keeping you so busy and that you are learning a lot. It sounds like your passion is really writing, maybe a good way to combine that passion with your desire to make a difference is to work for a non-profit and be in charge of their newsletter or some larger non-profits even have magazines. Are you interesting in fiction writing? My good friend Sarah is a writer and has been trying to get her book published for a while. Its a hard market to break into. I am actually one of the characters, well a fictionalized version of me in her book. I published a book too this past year, although its not a fiction book, its an intercultural training simulation. To tell the truth the whole process was very stressful and I don't know if I would like to do that again. Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing all about your internship experience.