Mia O’Brien

Mia O’Brien
Year: Freshman
Major: Journalism
Minors: Politics and Integrated Marketing Communications
Hometown: Freehold, NJ
Extracurricular Activities:
ICTV shows: Bombers Live, Sports Final, The Gridiron Report, Big Red Faceoff, Experts Say, Newswatch 16
WICB shows: Sports Staff, Morning Drive, Sports Talk
Other: Buzzsaw Magazine, International Association of Business Communicators
Volunteer: Media Club, South Hill, Ithaca Youth Bureau
 
Mia is this week’s Campus Celebrity for finding time to manage all of her extracurricular activities while still maintaining an A average.    
 
What brought you to Ithaca College?
When I was looking at communication schools, almost across the board they had the 70/30 split. 70% of the classes you take are liberal arts courses and 30% of your courses involve cameras. This basically means that you can’t use a camera until you are a junior. I just asked, do I really want to do that? I came up and sat in on a couple of classes at Ithaca and just the fact that kids were already using cameras and already able to write scripts really drew me. Also, just the fact that it is a smaller school-it’s big but small at the same time. If you want to know the truth, I love the Park Scholar Program. Also, Bruce Beck went here and he was one of my big mentors.
 
What is your dream job?
Realistically, my dream job is to be the next Rachel Nichols, including camping out on Brett Favre’s Lawn. I either want to work for ESPN and do anchoring or special reporting or I want to be an anchor in a mid to large market city. I like to say and think that I could be the first woman to call a Super bowl game. That is obviously a dream of mine and it would be very cool to break the barrier. One of my teachers in my sports broadcasting camp was the first women to call an NBA game. Wherever I end up, I hope to get involved in the community.
 
When did you discover your passion?
When I was in fifth grade, my uncle and I were sitting inside watching the Yankee’s game and I couldn’t stop watching it. I had always been a Yankee fan, but was mesmerized by the game. From that point on, every morning I woke up and the first thing I did was go on my MLB.com, my ESPN.com and I watched every game. From there that’s when it happened. I went to Bruce Beck’s and Ian Eagle’s Sports Broadcasting camp the summer after my freshmen year and that put me on the path. Two of the biggest names in sports pulled me aside and told me, “You can do this.” That’s when I knew I could.
 
When do you have time to sleep, eat, and breathe?
I’ve been the way that I am now since I’ve been in middle school. My mom instilled this mindset in me to come home, do my homework, go to my activities, eat dinner, do more homework, watch 20 minutes of TV and then go to bed. They called me the “anti-procrastinator” in high school because if there was a project due in three weeks, I would start it, just because I knew I had so much to do and I didn’t want to deal with it. I would attribute my anti-procrastinating for my ability to do all that I do.   
 
I’ve heard you talk in different voices, especially when you are talking to people back home. Where does that come from?
I attribute the voices to two things. One is my best friend from home, Jeremy Eisner from Columbia. He has the wackiest voices. Jeremy and I were on the speech and debate team in high school. We did a duo together one year and the two of us would just sit in my house and practice these voices. I also would attribute it to Mr. Baarlam, the director of my middle school play, who had a big influence on my life. He had a million voices and he would tell me to try out different voices before he wrote the script. He would be like, can you do this voice? I would work for a week on it and I would perform it for him. The he would put that character into the play. I also talk to myself a lot, too.     
 
What does it feel like to be a Campus Celebrity as a freshman?
My neighbor, Jennamarie Colicchia would always joke around and say that I was the mayor of Freehold. I was close friends with the mayor, too. When Jenna went off to college, she would randomly text me and say, are you the mayor yet? The girls on my Lacrosse team would always joke and say “Mia for mayor” during practice. That’s kind of what I look at this as. It’s a big honor, especially since Willie Slieght was the last campus celebrity and I consider him a friend. I had watched so many of my friends go to Syracuse, Come to Ithaca, go to Penn State and Marquette, thinking that they were going to get the on-air slot and they didn’t. I went into it not expecting anything, and they liked that I knew sports and I liked to argue and that I was crazy and they put me on-air. The biggest thing for me is to try to keep myself humble.  
 
Candace apologizes for this lengthy interview, but would like her readers to know that it’s Mia’s fault for talking so much.