On November 27, 2017, immediately after handing in a research paper for my Master's Degree, I was notified that I’d been accepted into CNN en Español’s internship program.
A couple of weeks later, there I was: at CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. And off I went, head first into what has been one of the defining opportunites in my early career. Not only had I the chance to polish preexisting skills and develop new ones; I was in the perfect position to shadow producers and learn from the some of the best in the broadcasting industry. And, did I?
As part of the internship, I rotated through different positions: from scriptwriting and creating multimedia packages to assisting in the control room and translating articles for CNN en Español's webpage. Thus, I had a taste of every department in the newsroom.
Along the way, I had the opportunity of meeting people from all over the world, particularly from Latin America. Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Honduras were some of the nationalities of my 25+ coworkers. And of course, many Puertoricans were met as well.
As a young Puertorican who had never lived abroad for longer than a week, to come in contact with so many cultures at once was truly fascinating. Some came to the United States as children; a few were born in the States and talked Spanish because of their parents' ascendence and influence; but most enmigrated as adults fleeing from civil and political unrest in their home countries.
That brought perspective into not only what I did everyday and how I worked, since I was working with them eight hours a day and could get a glimpse of how the industry worked in their countries, but made me more empathic with their life stories.
Working at CNN en Español has been thus far my favorite work experience. Not only did I start out as an intern and ended up working as a scriptwriter; I had the chance to shadow people from other departments and outlets, take courses that broadened my skill set, and learn from other cultures and cities I'd never had to visit.