Lafayette Campus News (www.lafayette.edu), February 21, 2008 — Carolyn Freundlich ’08 (Westfield, N.J.) is majoring in English. Carrie Lee ’89, morning business anchor for CNN Headline News, hosted her in an externship during interim session.
This past January I was given an opportunity to extern at CNN with business news correspondent Carrie Lee. The day started with a general tour of CNN. Three other Lafayette students and I were then brought to Ms. Lee’s desk. Ms. Lee greeted us with a smile and, after introducing herself, seemed interested in getting to know us. She was very warm, welcoming, and extremely accommodating for someone with such a busy schedule.
Not only did she let us follow her around for the day, she also went out of her way to introduce us to some of the most important people working at CNN. I was given the opportunity to speak with John Kline, the president of CNN, Caleb Silver, CNN Money website director, and other important members of CNN. These talks were informative, interesting, and, needless to say, a bit intimidating.
Ms. Lee wasn’t always available to stay with us while we spoke with some of the other members of CNN. She adhered to a very strict schedule. Periodically, she would excuse herself, fix her makeup, and give a live news broadcast, which she delivered with perfect elocution.
Shadowing Ms. Lee gave me insight into the rigorous demands of being a news anchor, which is why I signed up for the Lafayette externship program. As an extremely indecisive person, I have long been fickle about my future career aspirations. Lafayette provides several different excellent opportunities, including their externship program with several top companies, to test out different careers to try to see which one fits. Through Lafayette, I have seen into the day-to-day lives of someone working in the fields of marketing, PR, and the medical profession. Although I view these fields with great admiration, none of them seem to be right for me.
As a second semester senior, with 16 years of education under my belt, it has long since been time to buckle down and make a decision. I am not sure if it was the welcoming atmosphere, the general enjoyment and pride taken in the work of the employees at CNN, or the essence of the work itself, but thanks to the opportunity of being able to spend a day at CNN, I am fairly positive that I would like to work somewhere within the field of broadcasting/journalism.
