Meet the second class of Medill master’s students in Media Innovation & Entrepreneurship
It’s another year for the Medill School’s Specialization in Media Innovation & Entrepreneurship. With the first group of students off and running with all they learned from their year at Medill, the new students are ready to take on MIE.
The students spent their first academic term in Chicago, building their foundational understanding of reporting, storytelling, interactive technology and the media landscape. In early September, they all moved to the Bay Area, where they are taking three classroom courses and interning two days a week at a media or tech company.
Like the first group, these students come from a variety of backgrounds and have different goals. What they all agree on: the journalism industry is evolving, and they need to understand all of the forces that shape its future, especially technology, audience behavior and the media business. By studying media innovation at Medill, they feel they won’t be left behind.
Say hello to MIE 2017–18:
Duanli Zhu
Twitter: @junoindisorder | Instagram: @junoindisorder | Facebook: DuanliZhu
Background: Originally from Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province, China. BA in broadcast & digital journalism with a minor in marketing at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Why I chose MIE: “What I did mostly in undergrad was traditional broadcast journalism, working a lot as a producer or reporter. I really enjoyed it , but I also realized how the media landscape is quickly changing. Although broadcast might not be fading as quickly as print, I wanted to shift towards digital journalism. MIE is an intersection of business, journalism, and technology — three of those fields interest me.”
San Francisco internship: Audience analytics at the Bay Area News Group.
Future goals: “My ultimate goal is to return to a newsroom, but before that my goal is to work at a digital media or tech media company. I’m different from my American peers because there is a very real problem, which is we international students need to go through the visa process after we graduate — H-1B. The only way we can stay in the States and work is to first get a company to sponsor us, then we can have the opportunity to go through the lottery. If not, we won’t get the chance. The H-1B program was initially invented for STEM students. So it’s easier for STEM students to find these tech companies. With media companies, they don’t reject international students, but they just don’t have the culture and tradition of sponsoring them. If I were an American student, I probably would stick to my broadcast route because I really enjoy being a producer at a TV station. But because of [MIE], I can go into that digital technology path, and maybe I’ll get more of a chance of staying in America.”
Brett Bergstrom
Twitter: @bergstrodamus | Instagram: @brettbergstrom
Background: From Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, with majors in English and economics. Worked as a content strategist at a Nebraska e-commerce company.
Why I chose MIE: “The landscape of media is changing rapidly. This is a program that is preparing us to not only understand those rapid changes, but is also able to help us capitalize on our skills, put a good foot forward and carve out our own spaces. I’m just very excited about the Medill infrastructure. This program is also helping us be experts on the tech scene.”
San Francisco internship: Product management intern, Best Reviews.
Future goals: “I want to have a major influence on the ethics of the app world. The end goal would probably be to work for a company called Time Well Spent, which is trying to legitimize ethical practices in mobile apps.”
Alex Qi
Instagram: @alexqi75 | WeChat: @alex75 | Facebook: alexqialex
Background: From Tianjin, China. BA in English, Renmin University of China, Beijing. Worked as a TV news reporter and director at China Global Television Network.
Why I chose MIE: “I think this program is unique — few universities offer anything like this. It matches my needs very much because I want to take a little break from traditional journalism and learn more about data, marketing strategy and audience development. It’s the kind of knowledge I never touched upon in the past. I can benefit from the variety of industries that my classmates may be working for in the future. I feel Medill is supportive of its students, and it’s made me feel really comfortable about my decision.”
San Francisco internship: Marketing and content strategy, FuelX.
Future goals: “Coming here to Medill is already a transition for me. I think I worked almost every post in live broadcast. I want to do something different. So I’ve come here to figure out how different it could be. One of the directions could be for me to build my own startup. The other option is, maybe, working in a corporation doing marketing or advertising. But, eventually, I want to have my own business.”
Clare Varellas
Instagram: @clarevarellas | Twitter: @clarevarellas | Linkedin
Background: From Lafayette, California (East Bay Area), USA. Completed Medill/Northwestern’s undergraduate journalism curriculum with a minor in Spanish.
Why I chose MIE: “I went to journalism school for my undergraduate degree for my love of writing, and when I got there quickly fell in love with the media industry as well. I’m excited about the future of media, and want to be a part of shaping it. MIE, with its incredible curriculum, work opportunities and space for real innovation, provides a solid foundation for working toward that goal.”
San Francisco internship: Product management for the digital news team, San Francisco Chronicle.
Future goals: “I would be hard-pressed to tell you exactly where I’ll be in 10 years, but at this point I hope to work in media relations or media product management/marketing. I’ve had some awesome experiences working directly with media from the PR side, and I think that requires just as much innovation — as media changes, media relations change, too.”
Harriet White
Twitter: @harrietewhite | Medium | www.harrietewhite.com
Background: From Chicago, USA. Undergraduate degree in magazine editing, University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. Interned in government relations for Procter & Gamble in Brussels, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations in New York and the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. Worked for an asset management firm as the director of media and retail marketing for four years before Medill. Actively involved with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company as a young professionals board member.
Why I chose MIE: “With a background in finance, international relations and journalism, I had been looking to attend business school, so I could gain formal business knowledge and be an entrepreneur. Yet, when I found the Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship specialization, it was the ideal interdisciplinary program where I could bring together my interests in journalism and entrepreneurship.”
San Francisco internship: Audience development and editorial intern, Alpha Group, product incubator for Advance Digital (whose products including The Tylt).
Future goals: “With a degree at the intersection of business, journalism and technology, I’m hoping to work in product development in the media/journalism industry either in Chicago or the West Coast.”
Corinne Osnos
Twitter: @osnosis | Instagram: @osnosis | cosnos.me
Background: From Bethesda, Maryland, USA, but considers herself a Washington, DC native. University of Southern California, where she majored in philosophy, politics and law.
Why I chose MIE: “I want to be a writer involved in technology that is revolutionizing our world. This program seemed like a great way to combine my interest in the tech-sphere with my love of writing.”
San Francisco internship: Digital production, Sunset Magazine.
Future goals: “I want to work in editorial, but working in a new media environment. So, I’d rather work at a Vox or a Buzzfeed News, for example, rather than a traditional storytelling outlet. Or, I might just take the skills that I’ve learned at Medill and go into a different direction.”
Nancy Kong
Instagram: @nancykong1995 | Facebook: WenzhengKong
Background: From Beijing, China. Double majored in economics and media studies at University of California, Berkeley.
Why I chose MIE: “When I applied for grad school, I didn’t really want a purely journalism one. I wanted to learn more about technology and I saw this program, which also gives me an opportunity to go back to San Francisco, which is a center for technology.”
San Francisco internship: Content strategy, Best Reviews.
Future goals: “I don’t have a very specific goal because I’m entering [this program] to explore what I may want to do in the future. With my undergrad background, I really want to know how media business actually runs. It’s probably what I would want to get into in the future. So, probably working more in the business side of the media industry is where I hope to be.”
Andrew Lapin
Twitter: @AndrewLapin | Linkedin
Background:
From Huntington Woods, Michigan, USA. Graduate of the University of Michigan, where he majored in creative writing with minor in statistics and was editor in chief of the Michigan Daily. Worked as a reporter/editor for Current, a publication covering public media, and has been widely published as a freelance writer.
Why I chose MIE: “I entered the program with a fair amount of journalism experience, but with a lot of interest in where journalism is going as an institution. I feel the obvious answer to that is technology. I feel we have to understand how the world of media and the world of tech and even the world of business are intersecting, and figure out how this industry, which is supposed to be dedicated to public service, can keep serving the public. So, a lot of my interest in that ties to doing work for a trade paper, where I was covering public broadcasting and seeing a lot of the ways the technology was disrupting the field — causing people a lot of panic and people didn’t know what to do. Some people seem to have a handle on how to innovate and get their message across, while others don’t. There’s this huge gap that’s appearing. I just found that part interesting. This specialization, even though it’s fairly new, seems to be tailored in a way that would allow someone who was genuinely interested in these questions to take advantage of that and get to the heart of where it’s going and how I can play a part of that.”
San Francisco internship: Product management, KQED.
Future goals: “It’s almost easier to say what I don’t want to do. I don’t think entrepreneurship is the direction for me. I think it’ll be really exciting to go back to working in a newsroom, but in a more almost theoretical position. They talk a lot about the product manager role, which is a very nebulous term, but I don’t think this program is only limited to that. There’s a lot of senior editor roles or thought leader roles that are interesting to me — people who would have the opportunity to research and talk about trends in the news. I still have a lot of independent creative ambitions that I’m trying to see where all of it fits in.”
About the MSJ Media Innovation & Entrepreneurship Specialization:
Medill website | Video | Sign up for Medill Media Innovation newsletter | Rich Gordon’s guest column (Entrepreneurial Journalism Educators Network)
