Lisa duTrieuille

I am a 46 year old black female who will be graduating this Fall 2013 in broadcast journalism. Throughout my life, people have referred to me as highly intelligent, persistant, strong, courageous and I have even been callled a "goddamn free spirit." But I think what describes me the best is an award I recieved in my Spring semester broadcast journalism class where we shoot interviews, get b-roll, write scripts, edit what are known as packages and VOSOTS in the business of broadcasting and produce a show every friday called Update news at San Jose State University's broadcast station. On the last day of class, it was my birthday and I was missing my mother who was my biggest fan, whom my dad, younger sister and I took off full life support last February 27, 2012. Later in the afternoon I got a text from one of my classmates who was in my broadcast journalism class. It said that I could come pick up my award in the journalism office the next day. I responded to the text, "Me, an award?" This broadcast journalism class was not my easiest class and I had fears that I would fail miserably since I wasn't so adept and familiar with FCP 7 as I was with FCP X which is more user friendly. However when we had to upload our packages and VOSOTS to the server in the broadcast station, we had to use FCP 7. Most of my classmates were half my age and seemed to catch onto FCP 7 fairly quickly while I tended to struggle especially in the beginning of the class. But fortunately most of my classmates were very willing to help me with the editing using FCP 7 and I had issues with taking my video shots of interviews and b-roll at the right height and making sure I had enough b-roll to use if I needed to cover a jump cut. My instructor, Lloyd LaCuesta, was very patient with me and he was always there to help me with my scripts so I could get them approved to start editing my video footage. I learned a lot from my instructor and younger classmates and I started to feel more confident in my shots, things about shots that would make them stand out to grab the audiences attention and I began to become more familiar with FCP 7. Anyways, the award I recieved is called the Uppy Award which is the highest award one can recieve in that class and on the front of the award it had my name spelled correctly and it said," Most Determined" and the fact that it was given to me by one of the former and well known Bay Area broadcasters in the business, Lloyd LaCuesta, spoke volumes. I had no