Matthew Fernandes '15 is enrolled in both The College of Arts and Sciences and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. A double major, pursuing degrees in English and Textual Studies as well as Television, Radio and Film participated in the 2014 Winston Fisher Seminar. The talented writer calls the experience "insightful" and says it gave him the "confidence to face new and exciting challenges." He'll enter his senior year this fall and though he's anxious about what the future holds, he found the time to pen the below blog post for AS News. 

Summer starts again as another year at Syracuse University wraps up. And with the end of the semester begins the process of entering summer jobs and internships to supplement (and indeed financially alleviate) my education at SU. For the next few months, I will be working with a production company called Guerilla Wanderers Films in San Jose, CA, and am excited for the new experience. However, I can’t help but feel a sense of uneasiness and anxiety about starting this new position.

It might just be the usual “first-day-on-the-job” jitters that you get when you begin any new job, but this is something different from anything I have ever done before in my collegiate or professional career. Guerilla Wanderers produces anything from short promo spots to feature films. As such, the job will inevitably call on me to perform a variety of tasks (and not the usual coffee courier gig – my director said that interns sometimes even manage shoots). Though I look forward to this job with both excitement and anxiety, it makes me reflect on one of the more insightful experiences that I had this year: The Winston Fisher Seminar.

The Winston Fisher Seminar is an incredible and invaluable experience that any College of Arts and Sciences student should aspire to attend, and I could not be more grateful to have participated in it. It’s a week of learning, fun, and hard work that grants you the gift of feeling like you can do anything. From the first day of exploring the sprawling shops and avenues of New York City, to the business plan competition on the final day, the participating students learn about the myriad opportunities that a liberal arts degree creates for a career in the business world.

But the Winston Fisher Seminar is not just for finance or accounting or management, and it has much more of a lasting impact than the networking opportunities. Having been given the opportunity to create a product, write a business plan, and present my creation to real company executives forced me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to apply the critical thinking and creativity that I exercise daily in my Arts and Sciences classes at SU. It showed me that I can bring my liberal arts background to any setting, and gave me the confidence to face new and exciting challenges. This new confidence will be pivotal to my internship this summer as well as any careers I decide to pursue beyond graduation.