Fordham English Major Sera Allen (FCLC ’23) Receives the Women’s Media Group Scholarship

Sera Allen

By Elissa Johnston

Congratulations to Sera Allen (FCLC ’23), the first Fordham recipient of the Women’s Media Group Scholarship!

Every year, the Women’s Media Group Educational Foundation sponsors talented young women at a number of institutions. In December, Sera became the first Fordham student to receive the scholarship.

Sera first learned about the scholarship in September from a departmental email. “It was for senior female English majors—very specific, and I was like, oh, perfect! So I applied,” she told me.  

For her application, Sera wrote a 1-2 page essay on why she thinks media is important for young women (especially young women of color) and how she plans to carry this belief into her career in media. The application was due in mid-October, she was accepted in November, and her membership officially began in December.

The scholarship award helped Sera cover expenses for her senior year and fund travel for a Global Outreach project that took her to St. Thomas (the Virgin Islands).

As a Women’s Media Group member, Sera can also attend the organization’s events, including one in February for Black History Month. She found this event particularly encouraging: “I’m Afro-Latina myself… so I met other women in the field, from mid-twenties up into their fifties and sixties, and they shared their experiences with me, which was really cool.”

Sera also found Women’s Media Group events useful for networking. “I got some contacts [from that event], too. I know a woman at Simon and Schuster now, which is awesome.” The events are designed to be helpful for young women who are interested in entering media-related fields, Sera told me.

“At Fordham, I’m an editor of Bricolage, and that’s essentially what I want to do,” Sera said. She discovered her love of working with writers in her creative writing classes, which gave her many opportunities to participate in workshops. “Hopefully, I’ll do something like that—whether editing or publishing—when I graduate.”

Sera expressed gratitude for the Fordham professors who told her and her classmates about the kinds of careers English majors could have. “Certain professors [brought] in other professionals like literary agents and writers and [told] us what’s available to English majors, which I feel like I didn’t know when I declared my major. And now I do—I know what’s available to me. And that’s really cool.”

Sera also appreciated the opportunities to develop her interests during her Global Outreach projects and her semester in London (spring of 2022). She shared her experience in St. Thomas as part of a Global Outreach project that partnered with a local initiative to build an industrial soup kitchen. “I’m always leaning towards volunteering and service, helping people and doing for others,” she said. “I think it’s generally a good way to live.”

This passion for service connects to Sera’s general desire to amplify marginalized voices, which she sees at the center of her engagement with media (and participation in the Women’s Media Group). She hopes to continue that work of increasing representation as she enters the publishing industry. “I want to have the chance to publish women who look like me,” she said. “I used to not see people like me. Where are they? I was thinking,” she laughed. “I thought I was the only one. But that’s not true. There are so many other people out there like me; they’re just not always heard.”

Sera plans to continue writing herself while she works in the publishing industry. “Sharing my experience with other young women, giving them something to relate to—I think that’s important,” she said. “My background is Afro-Latina, and just seeing other Hispanic women in television, writing, podcasts—whatever the media, seeing myself reflected there is so important, and I would love to join that conversation and be that person for someone else.”

For those interested in applying for the Women’s Media Group, Sera said, “Just apply! There’s no harm in writing an essay, and you never know what will come of it.”