The first \u201creal world\u201d test for cherubs is the interviewing assignment \u2013 the journalistic equivalent of setting 84 baby deer loose. It\u2019s the first exposure to the challenges of journalism: talking to strangers, facing rejection and staying under a word limit.<\/p>\n
My strategy: saying hello to people I passed on the street and judging their reactions. I gave an old man walking home with his groceries a soft \u201cHi.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHi!\u201d he said and beamed. Bingo!<\/p>\n
In a 20-minute interview, I discovered that he used to work for the Chicago Symphony. I play viola, which sparked a conversation on the lyrical beauty of the instrument. We gushed about bossa nova, a niche genre of Brazilian jazz. He pointed to my soccer jersey; he played in high school, too.<\/p>\n
I nervously checked my phone every so often to see if I could squeeze in another interview and dinner before the 7 p.m. lecture. I couldn\u2019t. But I had learned to be brave.<\/p>\n
It pays off in journalism and in friendship. I met three of my best friends here by sitting next to them at lunch, cracking a joke and joining their conversation. At first, I just gravitated toward whoever laughed at my jokes. Now, after long nights playing Jackbox games, sharing Spotify playlists, texting in French at 2 a.m. and taking hundreds of photos, I\u2019ve finished these four weeks knowing how to talk to strangers \u2013 and make everlasting friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve finished these four weeks knowing how to talk to strangers \u2013 and make everlasting friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":2095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[171],"class_list":["post-1180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experiences"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":171,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"cap-ssivaraman","display_name":"Sid Sivaraman","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2119,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/2119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}