By KELLY KULTYS
From France to London, from boarding school to Fordham, , has constantly held one idea: Her desire to tell stories. And now, as her four years in the Bronx draw to a close, she’s turning this passion into a career.
Right now, Celia has what most seniors would kill for – a job lined up after she crosses the Keating steps. She’s one of about 70 students chosen from a pool of 6,000 who will be in the NBC Page program. This is nothing new for her, since she’s spent the last few semesters interning at 30 Rock. She’ll now have the chance to work on multiple shows within the NBC brand and advance during the 12-month program.
But, before she set foot within the multi-billion dollar industry, Celia started her journey at boarding school in New Hampshire, a time she describes as “somewhere between ‘iCarly’ and the Dead Poets’ Society.” She lived a state away from her home in Connecticut for three of her four years, spending her junior year abroad in France.
“I lived with one of the most renowned French historians,” she said. “He was super conservative and was kicked out of the Sorbonne for being so controversial.”
Celia is forever grateful to her host family for their kindness and their inability to speak English, which forced her to become fluent.
After traveling in France for a year, Celia returned to New Hampshire, but didn’t stay there for long, opting to complete an independent study in Dyersville, Iowa.
“I just really loved baseball,” Celia said.
What does baseball have to do with it? Dyersville is home to the field made famous by the movie Field of Dreams. She spent four months there, living amongst the people and interviewing them, while composing a story about their lives.
When her time at boarding school drew to a close, Celia told her parents: “My one rule is that I don’t want to go to college in New York City.”
So fittingly, after applying to 11 schools, Celia ended up in the Bronx, a few minutes north of the heart of New York City. She credits her amazing tour guide for taking her and her family into McGinley and stopping just a few feet outside the caf. She pointed around and said that here you can eat, play, serve and pray just a few feet away from each other. From that moment on, Celia was committed and adopted a variation of this when she gives her own tours. When she came to Fordham, the eventual communication & media studies major, philosophy minor and American Catholic studies concentrator had absolutely no idea what she wanted to do with her life.
“I didn’t understand what a comm major was until I came here,” she said, “I didn’t understand a TV industry was a place where you could have a job. I did, however, my whole life always love stories and how we tell stories and why we tell stories.”
All it took for Celia was an intro class with Dr. Susan Maushart to show her that she could take the things she loved and make them into a career.
“This carried me through the awful hours or the awful internships – the fact that I get to tell stories about those that don’t always get their voices heard,” Celia said.
So far, she’s taken advantage of every opportunity possible, interning at eight different places, including a theater production, Cirillo World, “Dr. Oz,” “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and “Morning Joe.” Each of these taught her something new from learning social media to coding a website site to learning how a live news show operates. She even decided to take on two internships in one semester.
“I did Oxygen and ‘Morning Joe’ at the same time – NEVER do that,” Celia said. “My hours at ‘Morning Joe’ were 3:30 a.m. to noon. I was there for elections and Sandy and it was an incredible experience. It was the first place I realized I loved news, the live format of TV.”
She even got to intern with the new host of the “Tonight Show” last semester at “Late Night wiht Jimmy Fallon.” Her schedule has not eased up going into her last semester, as she has added “Nightly News with Brian Williams,” returning to the live broadcast setting.
“I love seeing the ways a live newscast changes up until the last second of the show,” Celia said.
She got her big break with NBC her sophomore year when she interned with “Dr. Oz.”
“I’ve been in love with NBC since I was a little kid,” Celia said. “I love their mission statement, as corny as that sounds. I love what they stand for, the way they run their company.”
And now, come August, Celia will officially become a page, accepting the position at NBC with the hope of remaining there for a long time.
Until then, Celia says the plan is: “Maybe sleep a little. Do a GO! Trip. Travel. Do service.”
When asked about what she’s looking forward to in her last semester at Fordham, Celia’s answer is “Please don’t say that. Don’t make me cry.”
The Fordham Ram 
