Student Spotlight: Lena Osso 

Lena Osso was on vacation with her family in the summer of 2023 when a commercial popped up on the television in their room. It looked familiar. 

It was an ad for a Royal Caribbean Alaskan Adventure Cruise that the Newhouse School senior produced last year while working as an intern for Option A Group, a video production company near her home in Connecticut. The commercial, as it turns out, was being shown on all Royal Caribbean cruise ships across the globe — including the one the Osso family happened to be sailing on. 

“When I got into my room, I heard the music on the screen and I immediately looked over, it was the video that I had produced the summer before,” Osso said. “My whole family was like, ‘Oh my God! Lena’s video is on the TV. She made this!’ 

“So that was a pretty full circle moment for me where I realized that thousands of people had watched this video that I had made,” Osso said.  

The television, radio and film (TRF) major seems to be right on course to succeed after graduation.  

And to think, Osso once pondered in high school whether she wanted to go to college. She was prepared to enter straight into the workforce or move somewhere to chase her dreams of a career in the music industry.  

And why not? Osso already had experience. In high school, Osso was the first female director of her school’s daily morning show. She was the editor-in-chief of her school newspaper. She made YouTube videos and video projects for school sports teams, athletes and local businesses. She even started her own freelance videography business when she was 16.

But she also heard about the opportunities at Syracuse University through Newhouse.  

“If I’m going to college, I’m going to try and see if I can get into Newhouse,” Osso said. “If I don’t, I’ll figure out another plan.” 

No need to figure out an alternative. 

“As a little teenager, I was like, ‘Really? You want me to make that?’” Osso recounted. “But I guess I didn’t realize how much video, filming and editing talent I actually had at a very young age. Everyone told me, ‘You have to keep doing this. This is what you’re meant to do.’ So, I took that and ran with it.” 

At Newhouse, Osso has participated in student organizations including Zipped Magazine, Jerk Magazine and Citrus TV as an editor. She has worked as a videographer at University Union and is a founding member of music video production company 6Degree, along with five fellow Syracuse students. Osso mostly worked on the creative side in the company, learning what an artist wants from their video, storyboarding, shopping for set designs and location scouting to construct the video sets.

“[6Degree] was a great experience for me to actually learn how to set up meetings with artists and work and talk with them about how to make their songs come to life,” Osso said. “We were able to do it all on our own, which is super cool.”

That initiative had a rousing start, too: their first project, a 30-second promotional video for the artist 33col3, ended up premiering on a billboard in Times Square in October 2022.

“I was like, ‘Of course do it!’” Ben Frahm, a TRF assistant professor, recalled when Osso asked to be excused from a creative production class to watch the Times Square premiere.  

“That’s what every professor hopes for, that our students are getting out there,” Frahm said. “They’re furthering their wants, aspirations and networks. Lena does that.” 

Almost halfway through her final year at Newhouse, Osso wants to take advantage of as many Newhouse connections as she can to find job opportunities in New York or Los Angeles. Scheduled to graduate in May, Osso also plans to create another startup, or build off the one she established through her entrepreneurship classes. 

Osso has plenty of options, thanks to the many opportunities she created for herself.  

“I sometimes found it difficult to find an exact organization that I thought I could thrive in, which is why I have so many on my resume,” Osso said. “My biggest piece of advice is that if you can’t find something that you like, make it yourself … so just create whatever you want to and put your name out there.”