Hello! I'm Blake Corrao and I'm one of The DSM Group's new interns for the Spring 2015 semester.
I'm currently a senior at Ramapo College getting ready to graduate in May. I'm a Communication Arts major with a concentration in Journalism. I also have my Associate Degree in Journalism from Brookdale Community College, which I attended for 2 years before Ramapo.
I was first introduced to The DSM Group at a Communication Arts career roundtable at Ramapo. I met Chelsey and Dan, who told me about how the skills I'd picked up as a journalist could be perfectly applied to working in marketing. When I left that event, I knew that The DSM Group was where I wanted to be.
So far, The DSM Group has showed me that marketing is what I want to do. I always knew that I wasn't going to be a reporter after college, but before beginning my internship, I had no real clue as to what else a Journalism major could do. I'm really looking forward to an internship with real substance instead of running around getting coffee and lunch for my superiors, and that's what The DSM Group offers for me.
Work
In the past, I've worked mainly in the field of journalism. In high school, I was Editor-in-Chief of our school paper and continued writing for school newspapers throughout community college and for a semester here at Ramapo.
I spent my summer writing for Infectious Magazine, an alternative online music magazine, covering live events and music industry news. My most memorable experience was covering an insane Cannibal Corpse/Suicide Silence concert at Starland Ballroom in Sayreville NJ. I learned a lot about working through an online medium like WordPress and the importance of optimizing posts for the web.
Writing is my passion, and also something that I hope to continue to do throughout my life, regardless of what field I end up in.
Fun
While I did spend most of my summer working for Infectious Magazine, I also traveled to the Pacific Northwest on a two-week trip to explore Portland and the Seattle area, where I discovered what may be my two favorite cities in the country.
For me, there is nothing I enjoy more than being outdoors. I love to go hiking, and have hiked through most of northern New Jersey. Birdwatching is another passion of mine. Most recently, I traveled south to Florida to go birding at the Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach, a wildlife preserve populated by various large wading birds such as Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets. I enjoyed photographing these birds, and hope to continue doing so in the future.
Another passion of mine is film, which I've been blogging about since high school. I enjoy watching and criticizing movies, and some of my favorites are Drive, The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, The Dark Crystal, The Evil Dead and a ton of other horror films. I'm also secretly a Muppets fanatic (it's no secret).
Reading is also a big part of my life, and some of my favorite writers are Chuck Palahniuk, Neil Gaiman and Stephen King.
What's Next?
I don't know what field I'll end up in after college (and it kind of scares me to think about) but The DSM Group has changed my view of where I might want to go with my career, and I look forward to learning a lot with my Spring internship here.