From Sunny Cali to Snowy Cuse

https://soundcloud.com/user-980916979/sunny-interview

Sunny Tsai was finally about to graduate from UC Berkeley and wait a year to apply to USC when she received an email notification. 

"Syracuse University?" she thought to herself. 

When she opened the email, it was her acceptance into Newhouse. That was the moment Tsai realized it was time to finally leave California.

"I literally got an email, and I thought it was a joke because I forgot I applied," Tsai said. "And I think this was a sign that the universe is trying to tell me to expand my horizons and so I decided to come here because I know Newhouse is great."

Regardless, Tsai is now a part of the Newhouse family and hopes to use the skills she learns to accomplish her future goals. These range from covering the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to working for the BBC to ultimately settling down in the entertainment field of broadcast television. 

Inerview Transcribed:  

K: Start off by stating your name please and spelling it for me

S: Sunny Tsai.. s-u-n-n-y, t-s-a-i

K: Where are you from?

S: I am from Los Angeles, CA

K: Two Cali people. So how did you end up at Syracuse? All the way across the nation.

S: So originally I want to come here for undergrad, and my parents wanted me to stay instate. So, I went to Berkeley for undergrad and then I applied for grad school. The only school I visited before.. I never visited Syracuse before I started school here. The only school I visited before was USC, I fell in love with their program, and I decided that I was going to defer school for a year, so I could take the GRE and then reapply for USC because I wanted to do the application right. Then SU waived the GRE application last minute so I was like I might as well apply for fun, and see how we do. And so I applied, USC was going to be another year. SU, I got in, I literally got an email, and I thought it was a joke because I forgot I applied. And I think this was a sign that the universe us trying to tell me to expand my horizons and so I decided to come here because I know Newhouse is great. I came and talked to the graduate assistant, and made me very confident in my choice here, so that’s how we ended up here.

K: Where do you see yourself in the future? What’s your main goal? What do you want to do?

S: So I’m still exploring. I think that’s a big reason why I came to Newhouse because I love that we’re BDJ and broadcast-digital journalism. There’s so many areas that you can touch upon. And so for me short term goals are I really want to do the Olympics in 2020 in Tokyo. I think the olympics have always been family event to watch so to be reporting live from there would be amazing. So probably New York City until then, go to the Olympics, and then afterwards would love to work for London and work for BBC there because I like a lot of the things they produce and London is my city. It speaks my lifestyle. So, that’s hopefully where we end up shortly. Then in a couple years from then I would love to enter the entertainment industry and then explore the path that’s there too.

K: Who’s the coolest person you’ve interviewed, up until now?
S: I used to intern for a little magazine company up in LA called Famous Magazine. My boss was a little weird dude but he wanted us to go out and uncover stars.. rising stars. He wants to give people the chance to be seen. And then so one of those people at that time was Jai-Wolf. This was 2 or 3 summers ago so he was still growing. He was going to like Hard Summer and preforming there, LalaPalooza, Coachella. But he wasn’t a big stage, he was a small stage. And so, I just shot his manager an email and they got back to me and were like yeah lets set up an interview. And then he showed up in LA right after Hard Summer.