Pandemic Life Updates: New School, New Job

Hello friends!

It’s been a while since I’ve written here. It’s been a crazy year for everyone. On top of the COVID-19 pandemic, which took my grandpa from me in May, I’ve recently chosen to embark on several huge life changes.

I left my job at TEGNA in April, right as the work at home orders started coming down across most companies. I had been interviewing at NPR for a while, and I managed to snag a job just as the company started implementing hiring freezes and work from home orders itself.

Jumping to a new company from a place where I had seniority was scary. It felt like every week I was seeing more layoffs at media companies, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to be a newbie during such a tumultuous time. On top of all of that, at my new position at NPR, I work midnight to 8 a.m., Wednesday - Sunday. I’d never worked an overnight shift before, and I had just clawed my way back to a Mon.-Fri. schedule at my old job, only to be put back on weekends.

In the end, I took the leap and it has been incredibly fulfilling. I feel my coworkers are looking out for me, despite the fact that I have yet to meet them in person. I’m optimistic about NPR’s career development opportunities, and I’ve already been paired with a mentor to help me learn the ropes. You can read some of my work here. Here’s hoping a a long and happy career at NPR!

If starting a new job during a pandemic wasn’t stressful enough, I decided I’d up the ante by starting grad school at the same time! I had been studying furiously for the GRE for a long time, and I never anticipated that when I was finally accepted to my dream program that I wouldn’t be able to attend classes in person. Luckily, I’m only going to school part time so that I can continue working at NPR. Hopefully, I won’t be taking Zoom classes for the next three years.

I’ll be pursuing a Masters degree in Communications, Culture and Technology at Georgetown University. It’s a multidisciplinary program, and while I’m there I’ll be pursuing research on my interests in authenticity in journalism, food writing and influencer culture.

One of my projects this semester is to build an online portfolio. Seeing as I have had this portfolio since my freshman year of high school and I have already spend countless hours developing this site as well as my food blog, the last thing I want to do is customize another website, especially one that will be forgotten at the end of the semester. I’ll be adding some assignments throughout the semester to this existing portfolio instead. Stay tuned to see some of my musings on my research interests!