Julie Tsirkin JMS’17 took a winding path to her current position as an NBC News White House and Capitol Hill Correspondent. Throughout most of her time at Rutgers, she was on a pre-law track, and only fully committed to journalism in her senior year.
One of the first assignments she received in a Journalism and Media Studies class was to report on homeless people in New Brunswick, and just writing that one story she had already started to change her mind about her direction. “I just really enjoyed talking to people and telling their stories, and that really meant a lot to me,” Tsirkin said. “I realized that maybe pursuing law wasn’t fully aligned with what I was interested in.”
From there, she went all-in to catch up to her journalism peers and launch her career in the field. Tsirkin explained how SC&I played a major role in helping her secure the positions that came to shape her career. “The support that I got in pursuing my internship at NBC and the connection and pipeline that Rutgers offers, especially at SC&I, is really amazing,” she said.
But getting that first position was only the beginning of her journey. “When I had my first internship at 30 Rock that summer, I felt like a fish out of water,” Tsirkin said. “I really didn’t know what I was doing.”
It was Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Journalism and Media Studies Professor Steve Miller who supported her throughout that time and gave her the opportunity to gain the skills she would need to succeed. “He let me sit in on a bunch of classes where I could shoot a camera and try to do interviews,” Tsirkin said. “I wasn’t even officially taking them for credits, but he just let me do them as extra practice, which was super helpful.”
She took that hands-on work experience from SC&I back to her internship, where she said she said “yes” to every opportunity. As a result, NBC gave her a return offer the summer after she graduated.
Once again, the challenges didn’t end just because she landed the job. Tsirkin started her professional career at a particularly turbulent time in 2016. “It has been a very intense environment, not only with the politics that I cover but also the changing landscape with COVID, AI, and the changing ways in which people trust and consume media,” she said.
Despite these obstacles, Tsirkin is grateful for the position she has worked hard to earn. “The opportunities that I’ve had to cover Capitol Hill, talk to the smartest people, and be in a position of power are not things I take lightly,” she said.
But her favorite part of the job is still something simpler than that; it’s doing storytelling with real people. “Talking with politicians, elected officials, and lawmakers is amazing,” she said, “but there’s nothing quite as rewarding as talking to somebody who is actually impacted everyday by the policies made by those lawmakers.”
Tsirkin is still carving out her future path with those values of honesty and humility at its center. She is incredibly dedicated to her career, while also being open and receptive to her evolving passions, as she demonstrated through her senior year transition from pre-law to journalism.
Now, she’s considering expanding her focus to reporting on the health and wellness industry. “I could see myself one day transitioning more into that specific area, and I would love to do something in the wellness space from a journalism perspective,” she said.
She believes that anyone can make a significant transition with the right people backing them up, similar to the experience she had at SC&I. “Students pursuing journalism at Rutgers have an array of options in front of them,” she said. “They should know that it’s okay to pivot and change and weave ... even if it’s their senior year and they’re last-minute deciding not to go to law school, like in my case!”
