Reflections of Yesterday, Visions of Tomorrow

I briefly noted a couple of important aspects of my life in my bio sketch that I wish to dig into further in this post. One is my experience traveling the world through the study abroad program Semester at Sea and how I ended up at the doorstep to the Quinnipiac ICM program.

In the fall of 2001 entering my senior year of college, I embarked on a journey from Vancouver, British Columbia to travel around the world. For those three months there were many notable experiences like visiting the Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal and meeting Fidel Castro. But after being two weeks on the Pacific Ocean in the beginning of the program, 9/11 occurred a day before we entered the first country of Japan. It was after that major event, that I truly shaped me as a person experiencing different cultures and their reactions to that event. It changed our complete route in our travels and made me see first hand the many different types of people there are in this world. It made me not only experience world cultures for the first time, but also made a huge impact on myself as a person. It was very strange to come back to a more patriotic and changed country.

Years later after being isolated in one monotonous and repetitive job, I decided I needed a change. I was still interested in media but saw both the company I work for and other mediums drastically turn towards the online world. Many of the schools close to Stamford did not offer anything close to this area so a Quinnipiac undergraduate alumnus and friend of mine sent me information on the ICM program. I attended an information seminar and looked at the class descriptions and immediately became interested. Two years and a wealth of knowledge and online design experience later, I am close to completing my Master’s Project.

These two life-changing experiences have had a big impact on my life and make me view both the real and virtual worlds in a different way.

Great expectations

Even after taking many journalism classes in my undergraduate years, I still see myself as an amateur writer. I see writing as a reflection upon the character of a person and through this course I hope to make my writing stronger than what it currently is. In the past, I have been told a lot of my views and ideas are not necessarily conveyed the way I see them through my writing. As a result, I hope to develop and maintain certain skills during this class. These skills include: becoming more aware of my audience, better organization and clarity and increasing my personal motivation to write more.

There is a scene in the movie 'A River Runs Through It' where a young kid wants to go out and play but his father won’t let him until his essay is perfect. He writes and then turns it in to his father who makes changes and tells him to write it again. This happens over and over until he finally gets his essay perfect and then can go out with the satisfaction that after writing over and over, a perfect final outcome can occur. Just like the term “practice makes perfect,” I hope to achieve this same outcome in this class.

A writing ritual is what I have veered away from working in the video production field all of these years. That combined with Flash animation classes have limited my writing capabilities. With constant revisions made to my own pieces of writing during this class, I am hoping I can become more concise and create powerful sentences.

I am looking forward to the constant honest and intelligent feedback and using it to improve my skills. With all of these components and practice, I hope to feel that personal satisfaction after submitting my different pieces of writing, 3 or 4 drafts later.

Starting off 506 with a bio sketch

As you all know by now, my name is Jon Richichi. I am originally from Connecticut born and raised in Stamford since 1980. I developed an interest in new technology and travel early in life. I guess that comes with having an outgoing personality and the urge to explore new opportunities. As an avid traveler with my family and friends from childhood to the present, I found to learn more about myself as a person. I was an undergrad at the University of Colorado in Boulder and studied and worked in every aspect of television production since then. In my senior year, I did Semester at Sea where I traveled around the world on a ship that proved to be one of my most memorable experiences in life. Some of the countries I visited were Japan, China, Vietnam, South Africa and Cuba. After graduating in 2002, I decided to move back to Stamford where I currently live and work.

Although I am glad I only have a three mile commute to work at A&E Television Networks and work with great people, my current position is a dead end. I decided to change career paths and extend my education into the online interactive design world with the help of Quinnipiac. I am extremely interested in the creation and development of a fully functional website that I plan to do for my Master’s Project. Ideally I would like to be a content manager for a web design company in a more creative environment than what I’m currently doing. I really enjoyed the ICM Interactive Animation class learning how to design and animate content for the web.

I would also like to add that I enjoy watching and playing all types of sports, traveling and laughing. I enjoy all types of music but my favorite is dance music from international DJ’s. I also like all types of movie genres but prefer comedies. Some of my most favorite movies include Good Morning Vietnam, The Hangover, Rudy and Shawshank Redemption.