Rachel Staats

Me (left) with my best friend.

My name is Rachel Staats, and I am a senior journalism major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the high school I graduated from (Lincoln High School) is about one mile away from UNL's campus. I have only taken one other online class at UNL, and it was much less involved than this one. I don't think we used Blackboard at all, other than at the beginning of the semester to find the syllabus.

The teachers and teachers assistants
outside our office in Taipei, Taiwan.

Aside from the summer of 2011, which I spent in Taiwan teaching English to middle school and high school students, I have lived in Lincoln for my entire life. I decided to take this class partly because it fulfilled a requirement for my film studies minor, but also because one of my passions is traveling, and I want to learn more about communications between different cultures and subcultures.

I have always wanted to travel as a part of my career, which I hope to make possible when I graduate in May. My other passions are reading, writing, music and film, so my desire at the moment is to spend a couple years doing travel writing and screenwriting. In the future I hope to be an acquisitions editor at a major publishing company (preferably in London), but I want to experience as much as I can of the world before I settle into any career.

My sister, Cassia.

The idea of graduating in May is a little intimidating, but I have a solid group of friends at my church who are some of the most important people in my lives, and having them is a huge comfort to me. I was lucky enough this past summer to move into a house with a few girls from that group, so even though I have had a great many changes over the past year and more changes in the year to come I know my friends, who are practically my family, will always be there for me. My friends and family are the most important people in my lives, but my little sister is the one who gets me through everything. She was born when I was 12, so I have always felt extremely protective of her. She may only be nine years old, but she will always be my best friend!