About Jay

Jay Hickey is a transfer student majoring in broadcasting from the Bronx, NY. He is a member of WNYO and a brother in Zeta Beta Tau.
Email: jhickey@oswego.edu | Website: http://facebook.com/xSABREJAYx

Posts by Jay

First Semester Recap

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Jeez, no post since October 4th. How lazy can I get?

Well since my last two blogs, a lot had happened. I’m a proud brother of Zeta Beta Tau, I’m starting two new clubs on campus (which I hope will be up and running in the upcoming semester), became a member of WNYO, and took 5 classes. So I guess in a sense I had a lot to occupy my time. But onto my blog, so here I go.

Things I learned from this semester:

  • There is A LOT of snow in Oswego
  • Brotherhood means the world to me
  • You have to set goals and standards for myself
  • You need to be in something 100% to succeed at it
  • Planning ahead does so much more good than harm
  • If you believe in something enough, it can happen
  • Always be proud of your accomplishments, but always be humble about them
  • Two majors is more work than one, but more rewarding
  • Networking WORKS
  • Distance changes everything
  • Know what you want to major in (even if you don’t yet, school IS a work in progress)
  • When times are tough, always have faith in yourself and others
  • STAY POSITIVE

In those few bullet points, that literally can sum up my entire semester. This semester taught me to keep pushing myself in everything and don’t stop until you have finished what you started. I guess this can be my advice blog? I had such a meaningful experience this past semester and it renewed faith in myself and trust in others. I’m not one for lengthy blogs personally, I like to be short, sweet and to the point. But until next time, this song helped me get through the semester.

A Day To Remember- All I Want

Taking a stance

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I wasn’t quite sure what to write about in this week’s blog, and I decided to write about Tyler Clementi.

This past week a freshmen at Rutgers University named Tyler Clementi died after jumping off the George Washington bridge. Most of the time, when I read about kids killing themselves, I’m often times apathetic to hearing about it. Now hear me out, I don’t mean to be rude or uncaring, but when someone takes their own life, it’s obvious they didn’t care much about themselves, so it’s often times hard to feel sympathy for someone who takes their own life.

However, in the case of Tyler Clementi, I felt absolutely distraught. For those who don’t know, Tyler ended up jumping off the GW bridge through embarrassment of what his college roommate did to him. His roommate recorded him having sexual intercourse with another male and posted it on the internet for the world to see. Through this invasion of privacy, Tyler took away his life at the age of 18 with a bright future ahead of him.

Being a supporter of gay rights and an overall humanitarian, this story hit very close to home. It really got me thinking though. What kind of world is it that we live in, where people are mocked so much so to the point of suicide? Why do people have to see the world in sexual preference, age, race, gender, etc? Why does the world put so much emphasis on who people are born as, rather than their own personal character? I get it, people judge other people, it’s inevitable, but why do people put so much emphasis on race, sexual preference or gender, rather than their personality, moralistic values and overall character?

In my Comm 100 class, I spoke up about how I support equality of all forms. I said something to the effect of how, to this day, I don’t understand, why in conversation people still feel the need to point out ones race or sexual preference when they’re just people. Just because they are different does not make them outcasts in today’s society. I mean, how many more lives must be lost through suicide through discrimination and bullying before someone takes charge and stands up and says enough is enough? When do we as a society decide that this needs to stop? When does the world stop seeing in black and white, and see everyone as equals?

I’m heartbroken over this whole situation, and I’ll still wonder what it will take to prevent a tragedy like this to happen again. All I can say is, my condolences go out to the Clementi family, and I personally and taking action to raise awareness on equality, acceptance and prevention of bullying. It’s going to be hard, but all it takes is one voice to stand up for something.

Person you were and the person you’re becoming.

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I guess this is the part where I give a cliché moment of describing myself? Alright well, my name is Joe, but I have been called Jay for years so I prefer it over my actual name. I’m not really from the Bronx. But I’ll explain; I was born in White Plains, raised in Yonkers, but I feel like I grew into the person I am today in the Bronx with my four years of high school at Mount Saint Michael Academy. The only other facts about myself that I can give is that I am Straight Edge (I abstain from alcohol, drugs and smoking), Vegan (do not eat or use any product tested, or made from an animal), I love seeing and getting tattoos and I am an activist in both animal and gay rights. I believe firmly that animals should never be abused and ones sexual preferences shouldn’t be judged in a negative light.

Now onto my blog, I could’ve wrote something about how I am homesick (which I am not yet) or about how I miss the girl back home, but I decided to ask and try to answer a question I once asked myself 2 years ago and answered before I left for Oswego.

After being accepted to Oswego State, I kept wondering what the future was going to hold. Formerly being at Westchester Community College, I established myself around the campus, amongst the student body and the faculty as a driven, hard working person who wanted better for himself and those around him. For example, WARY 88.1 was the radio station I was on. It quite possibly have been one of the biggest turning points in my entire collegiate career. I didn’t join because a love for radio, rather for a place to hangout and meet new people. After a month of being there, I switched my major from journalism to broadcasting and I had an opportunity to set myself to become something with something I became passionate about.

I remember reading a few blog entries on here for people whom interned down in Manhattan. Reading their blogs, it seemed that they thought that the city was the best place on the planet. Granted, it’s a place with a lot of opportunities, but it can also be someone’s biggest downfall. Not to sound negative, but fact is, some people get so caught up with working in Manhattan, they lose sight of why they first were there. I certainly had that advantage (being 15-20 minutes away) when I had the opportunity to intern at Sirius XM Satellite Radio under the king of all media; Howard Stern, to not be distracted by the “New Yorker attitude“ since I already had one. To this day, the internship still stands as the biggest highlight of my life. I mean imagine this for a second. You come into work, and you share the elevator (although it’s at 4am) with either Robin Quivers or Fred Norris, as you walk through the Sirius lobby, and into (what they called) the Stern compound and walk to a section strictly for the interns and work side by side with Gary “BaBa Booey” Dell’Abate. It’s definitely one of the most overwhelming experiences in the first week of work.

Going from journalism to broadcasting as a major, then in less than a year, you intern for the biggest name in the business, just shows how determined I am to make it in this business. I helped bring more attention to the broadcasting and communications departments at my school through my hard work and I hope to leave behind a good ethic for those to someday follow in and do something great.

Through this brief history of myself, it brings me to the point I wanted to make in my blog. At WCC, I was one of the well known students. People knew me by first and last name and the good reputation that followed. I’ve given speeches to prospective students, taught students how to work the on-air studio at WARY, trained them on Adobe Audition, interned for Stern, and doing all this while maintaining a 3.5 GPA. To some this is easy, to me, being someone who had no intent of even going to college in high school, this is a BIG deal. I showed to myself that if I put my mind to something, I can accomplish it.
Now you may be asking, where is he going with this? Well, at my old school, I was somebody, now onto Oswego, I am at square one all over again. Oswego has given me a fresh start, something I wanted since January 2010 when I was accepted to the school. But now that I am here, I feel like this fresh start may not be as beneficial as I thought.

I come into WNYO, and they do things completely different than they did down at WARY. But unlike most people, I like the challenge, and more importantly, I like to learn about my new environment because then, I can do for WNYO what I did for WARY and help try to make this program even better than what it was. However, the question still linger in my mind, what am I going to do to make a name for myself here? I’m aiming to getting good grades, aiming to bring WNYO up to that “next level” and become a Zeta Beta Tau brother and help bring a great fraternity to that next level as well.

So far my first few weeks here have been pretty eventful with joining WNYO, Rush Week with ZBT and just getting used to my new environment. Next blog, I hope I’ll be talking about what it’s like to try and join a frat, but until then I leave you with a quote that I got from a fortune cookie at Wonton House:

“Not having a goal is more to be feared than not reaching one.”