A music conservatory graduate, Brazilian-born Lorena Ruiz toured and
recorded for five years with her rock band, Lucia Lie. But life on the
road began to lose its appeal.
"I felt a longing for real academic thinking,” she explains, “and the challenges to common perceptions that come with that.”
Ruiz decided to enroll in the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs, with a concentration in Media and Culture.
“In one of my first courses, we compared the way large international
organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank deliver crisis
aid to the methods of smaller organizations," Ruiz says adding that the
class was tasked with conducting research and analysis and coming up
with novel solutions to problems. “Classes were small and stimulating,
and everyone participated. I learned as much from my amazing peers as I
did from my professors. I found the intellectual challenge I had craved
for so long.”
In 2010, Ruiz landed an internship at the cable
news station MSNBC, a position she found through an information network
at The New School. Today she's a line producer at MSNBC, handling
graphics and video and writing short news segments for anchor Joy Reid.
“The documentary and technical courses I took in the Media Studies program gave me the confidence to jump right in," she says.