Shefali Anand’s Testimonial
Shefali Anand tells of her experiences since applying for the WSJ Fellowship:
It seemed like a long shot to apply for the WSJ Asia fellowship back in 2003.
After all, editors at the most important business publication in the world were going to select only one journalist from Asia for this fellowship; what was the chance it would be me? I had only three years of experience working as a reporter/ copy editor at a newspaper which is well-regarded in India but hardly known globally. But I’m glad that I didn’t let my hesitation keep me from applying, because that turned out to be one of my best moves, not only career-wise, but also for my growth as a person.
I joined the NYU program in September 2004, and for the next year-and-a-half, I learned about everything from digging through court documents, to journalism ethics, to economics and investment banking. Equally important were the friendships and network of journalists I developed while studying at NYU. My class of nine students included one from Singapore, one from China, one from Italy and the rest from the U.S. Talk about a meeting of minds from around the globe!
In 2006, I was hired by the Journal in New York to write about mutual funds, and later, my beat expanded to personal finance. In my mind, my job is broadly to write about how Wall Street impacts individuals like you and me. This has been a particularly exciting year to write about that, because the recent market turbulence has unearthed many hidden problems. For instance, I wrote stories about individuals who had put their money in securities which they were told were safe, just like cash, but this year they couldn’t get their money out.
As a journalist, I’m driven to write more such stories where individuals are not being told the entire truth, and there’s no better place to do that than the Journal. I should note that winning the WSJ fellowship doesn’t automatically result in a job at the Journal. But the exposure and knowledge that I got while at NYU would have propelled my career no matter where I ended up working. That long shot for applying to the WSJ Asia fellowship was well worth taking.
More testimonials can be found here.
