Laura Foti

Laura Foti, a recent Newhouse Alum, came into our COM 117 class to tell us about her story. She began by explaining how her father has rheumatoid arthritis which resulted in him being physically disabled. She is a very active and athletic person but her father couldn’t physically participate with her in various childhood activities due to his disability. They made up that loss of connection with storytelling. Her father would draw pictures while they both made up stories based around those images. In high school Laura found her voice, and realized that communication helps people. Specifically, Laura wanted to help healthcare and loved hearing about the new treatments for others with rheumatoid arthritis. Before her first year at Syracuse, Laura spent a year in Argentina. She dove into the different culture and started blogging for her hometown back in Pennsylvania. She also started writing stories about her experience for a paper in Argentina, which means she had to write them in Spanish. She discussed many of the differences, good and bad, between the two cultures and the cultural differences. Reflecting on her travel she told the class to always share their story, you never know who will be interested or who is listening.
Coming to Newhouse, Laura was a very busy freshman. She joined many different groups and fulfilled her many different interests, while networking with people along the way. Laura is a go-getter, going into the summer after her freshman year she already had an internship, which honestly stressed me out. She interned with many different businesses, her first being a baseball group in Cape Cod and others being large corporations like GE Healthcare. Laura is now a business technology analyst at Deloitte. While she did major in public relations, and was really good at it, Laura thought that Deloitte was the best fit for her.
Laura’s story has inspired me to become more of a go-getter like herself. She doesn’t seem to back down or take no for an answer. She told the class that the more things you try the more you grow and that the happiest people take the most risks. She has encouraged me to take more control of my future and start now rather than later. I will now network more and tell my story. People don’t remember the same old introduction with your name and major, you’ve got to give them something to remember. Although it is overwhelming to think of all the hard work she put in to be where she is now, I know in the end it will pay off if I try to do the same. She explained that most everything can relate back to storytelling, so hopefully I just have to be a good storyteller to achieve my dreams, right?