Where are you from?
New York. I grew up in New York City and moved to Westhampton in 10th grade.
What year are you at GW?
I’m a senior graduating in May 2012.
What are your major(s)/minor(s) at GW?
I’m a Communication major and a Creative Writing minor.
What originally attracted you to GW?
A few things. For one, I immediately loved Washington DC and thought it would be such an interesting and exciting place to go to school, especially with the upcoming election in 2008 at the time. And GW’s campus was in such an amazing location near the monuments and Georgetown. Being from New York city originally, I liked the idea of being back in a city again. Also, I thought DC and GW would have a lot of great opportunities for me to get involved in in terms of internships, academics, student activities, etc. After my first visit, it was immediately at the top of my list.
What activities are you involved in at GW?
My main extracurricular activity at GW is GWTV.
How did you first get involved in GWTV and why?
I first heard of GWTV during the fall student activities fair and I immediately wanted to get involved and make it my main priority. For years, I had had the ambition of working in television one day and I thought that GWTV would provide me with such an amazing hands-on experience that I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else, even at an internship. At GWTV, I could learn what it would be like to be a producer, director, writer, or anything else I could ever dream of being in the television industry and at the same time it would give me knowledge and experiences that would be useful to me in the future.
What do you currently do for GWTV?
I am currently one of the two general managers and I have been for two years now. I am also one of the executive producers of all GWTV’s content, as well the creator of our sitcom, Interns. Unfortunately, we transition to new leaders after this semester, so it’s a little bittersweet right now. I’m going to miss it.
What inspired you to start a sitcom at GW and how did you come up with the plot of “Interns”?
I always wanted to create a sitcom for GWTV because writing for television is ideally what I want to do in the future and I just couldn’t pass up the incredible opportunity GWTV provides students with of creating their own shows. I figured what better way to get experience in what I actually want to do than this. I wanted to create a sitcom for GWTV since my first day there because I noticed GWTV didn’t really have any fictional programming, so I was talking to one of my best friends from New York, Arielle, about it and she helped me brainstorm and come up with the basis for the show and the characters.
Have you had any cool internships in the past years? What were those experiences like?
I’ve had a few very cool internships–I’ve been really lucky. During the fall of my junior year I was a production intern at the Discovery Channel in Silver Spring, which was a great opportunity to learn more about creating nonfiction programming. And then this past summer, I spent a couple months in LA and interned at ABC’s Private Practice and Castle, which were hands down some of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had as I got to watch real television being made and kind of got a look into exactly what I want to do in the future. And the people at those shows were some of the nicest, most considerate people I’ve ever met in that they went out of their way to make sure I learned something and let me attend production meetings and writers meetings and table reads and I just can never thank them enough for that.
What do you aspire to do as a career after graduating from GW?
Ideally, I would like to move to California and get a job as a production assistant for a drama or comedy on a network and work my way up and ultimately be a writer and/or producer.
What is your greatest goal?
My greatest goal is to write and produce for one of the major networks and maybe even be the creator of my own show.
If you could accomplish anything without limitation, what would it be?
It would probably be to be the creator and executive producer of my own show on a major network. But at this point, I’m just happy trying to work my way up and learn as much as possible along the way.