Here’s a testimonial from Jody Xu, who is currently on the program:
If it were not for The Wall Street Journal Journalism in Asia Fellowship, I would still be working in Time’s China office, in the reporting job I started six years ago. I certainly would not have enjoyed the same opportunity to learn about business and finance and to interact with journalists in New York writing about the historic economic events of the past year.
But fortunately, half a globe away and three semesters later, I feel prepared to write about the most important business and financial stories. I owe it to the WSJ Fellowship and to the education I have received in NYU’s program in Business and Economic Reporting (BER). The BER program is interdisciplinary, with a curriculum split between business journalism courses at NYU’s Carter Journalism Institute and MBA courses at NYU’s Stern School of Business.
I’ve heard it said many times that numbers should not scare a business writer. But believe me, getting a perfect score on the GRE’s math section is different from understanding financial statements. The finance, accounting, and economics courses I took in the first and second semesters at NYU equipped me with a solid foundation in business principles. And the flexibility that the final semester offered with free electives allowed me to expand my knowledge in areas I found most exciting.
I started an internship at The Wall Street Journal this summer. And while there I have been able to see the value in the cutting edge media tools that I’ve learned at NYU, including blogging, video shooting and editing, and podcasting. Thankfully, these newly acquired skills have enabled me to become very involved with WSJ’s online media. I am currently writing for the Deal Journal blog with frequent updates about mergers and acquisitions. Since September 2009, I’ve been writing a weekly column, Decoding China, for the blog that was created to help Western investors understand China better.
During the internship, I also worked with The Journal’s multimedia team to make a video to go along with feature stories. Again, I stress that my new media skills are critical to flourishing in today’s news environment. The school’s Guerilla News class provided training that enabled me to complete a podcast, a photo slideshow, three short videos, and confidence in handling the gadgets and software.
Nothing above would have happened without the opportunity provided to me by the WSJ Fellowship. In a new world of journalism where we must be able to report in all media and understand complex financial and economic concepts, NYU’s Business and Economics reporting program has provided me with exactly that.
