New Jersey native follows her passion to UT

Jun 28

Jun 28 New Jersey native follows her passion to UT

Mia Ciardi traveled thousands of miles to pursue her journalistic dreams at the University of Texas at Austin because writing has always been her “thing,” she said.

Ciardi is from New Jersey and was accepted into UT-Austin as a social work major. Although she applied to other schools with her major listed as journalism, she had her eyes set on minoring in journalism at UT-Austin. Ciardi decided to come to Texas because she wanted to branch out and move away from home. She knew UT-Austin had a highly ranked journalism school and that was the information she needed to make her decision.

As Ciardi recalls her primary major as a social work major, she decided to change her major during her sophomore year to journalism.

“I always wanted to write,” she said.

Prior to college, Ciardi had started her journalistic career by writing for her high school’s newspaper. During her junior year at the UT, she wrote opinion pieces for The Daily Texan, UT’s student run newspaper.

One of Ciardi’s goals after graduation is to be a broadcast journalist.

“I’m not camera shy and I enjoy talking to people,” she said.

She was influenced to do broadcast journalism because of her peers who are also majoring in broadcast journalism. They gave her the inside scoop of all the fun and interesting details of the job.

Thus far, the most influential class Ciardi has taken while being at UT was “Digital Storytelling” with Professor Robert Quigley. The class taught her how to use social media in a positive way and make a brand for herself.

“[Branding yourself] is one of the cornerstones of being a journalist,” she said.

Just like many millennials, Ciardi was not often consuming news until she switched to journalism. Ciardi became more active on Twitter by following every type of new source and reading every article that appeared on her feed.

“Creating a habitual system of consuming makes it easier to understand the news,” she said.

Ciardi has even thought about being a foreign correspondent since she enjoys traveling and talking to people. As she enters her fourth year at the UT-Austin, Ciardi is looking forward to reapplying to the Daily Texan in the fall and spring to write more opinion articles.