"The medium is the message."

- Marshall McLuhan

My time at Stony Brook University has been one I will take with me forever. Though the school is known around the world for it's mathematics and science based academic offerings, it has opened my eyes and taught me so much about media, film, and journalism since I began. I am what we at the university call "an academic minority", as I have never had a lecture in Javitz 100, the university's biggest lecture hall that holds hundreds of students. My biggest lecture since freshman year has been with roughly 75 students, and since then the numbers range from 15 students to a mere 40. While these numbers may seem insignificant to some, they are most important to me. I am a discussion-based learner - I take in information best when it is through conversation and analysis. While my friends complain for me that I cannot skip class because all of my professors know my name, I feel blessed. 

This university, one of the top in the world, has shown me the importance of individual growth. I grew up on Long Island, on the border of Queens and Nassau County, only twenty miles from the greatest city in the world. When I decided to go to SBU, I was nervous I would not grow, I would not experience. I was wrong - flat out. I have never been surrounded by so many academically challenging and determined students before, nor have I ever heard of professors who were professionals in their field of teaching. My journalism professors are journalists for local papers to the New York Times. My cinema professors have written numerous books on their topics, and I will never forget my Jazz and American Culture professor who interviewed jazz greats that he taught about. He did not teach from a textbook, but from his personal experiences, and it got me thinking...

Cinema, journalism, digital arts, and everything else I have had the privilege of studying thus far, are best taught through experiencing them. You can analyze a film, but it takes watching it several times to fully grasp it. You will only learn about the correct placement of text on a website after seeing it fail the first few times, and you will only be comfortable reporting in front of a camera after you "get the hang of it". In a way, media is a lot like life in general, and in this technologically-driven world, the two are becoming more relative than ever before.

To learn more about my undergraduate coursework, click any of the subjects on the left navigation bar, and from there, learn more about the courses themselves, and read essays and articles I have written for my courses. Enjoy!