This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Texas chapter.
Sex and the City: This iconic television series inspired young women all over the world to follow their dreams to the city of lights whether they aspire to work in public relations like Samantha Jones or art dealing like Charlotte York. With that said, Her Campus Texas’ very own social media editor and contributing writer Felicia Fitzpatrick said that her interest in journalism and social media began her freshman year of college, when she started watching Carrie Bradshaw in all of her journalistic glory on Sex and the City.
At first Fitzpatrick was enticed by Bradshaw’s glamorous New York City lifestyle, which included swanky soirees (on what seemed to be a weekly basis) as well as working at home with take-out Chinese always only a phone call away. This soon changed when Fitzpatrick realized that she could relate to and connect with people through writing. Thus, she created a Twitter, a Tumblr, and applied to be a writer for Her Campus Texas.
Fitzpatrick is a student, dancer, blogger, and social media extraordinaire. When she isn’t in class or working at her job at Ballet Austin she is either writing for Her Campus Texas, updating one of her various social media outlets or applying for various (fabulous) New York City internships for this summer. Fitzpatrick’s wit and charm is uncanny and easily translates through her online persona. Fitzpatrick focuses most of her journalism work on social media, which within the past few years has really exploded.
“Social media is important because it connects ideas and people,” said Fitzpatrick. “You can always find at least one other person on the Internet that you connect with.”
While many other media outlets dismiss social media as an ill form of journalism, Fitzpatrick believes just the opposite.
“I can understand how some people could view social media as ‘fluffy’ but I think it’s a great news source. I have heard about so much stuff from Facebook and Twitter, and one of my favorite things about social media is how people connect over national events and news,” Fitzpatrick said. “From Obama’s second inauguration to Beyonce’s Superbowl, social media is used to cover and preserve these important and exciting national moments.
Last summer, Fitzpatrick was a social media intern at DoSomething.org in New York City. There she was allowed to manage the DoSomething.org Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook and Youtube channel, quite a responsibility considering how many followers the organization has on each different outlet.
“I had to be so aware of my diction and semantics when writing because I was representing DoSomething.org,” Fitzpatrick said. “DoSomething.org has 322k+ followers, so when they don’t like something, they certainly let you know.”
Fitzpatrick’s experience last summer was her introduction into the real world of journalism and social media. Now that she got a taste, she is even more inspired to continue her work.
“I definitely want to head back to New York this summer to continue my social media/editorial writing work,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ll most likely be back at
DoSomething.org, but I have also been talking to Seventeen Magazine and Glamour Magazine about opportunities, which is way awesome! While I’m there, I’ll be making sure to hit up some dance classes and watch Broadway shows. That’s one of my favorite things about NYC- it’s the epicenter for everything.”
Keep up the good work, Felicia. Carrie Bradshaw would be proud.
You can find and follow Felicia online at:
