A Leap into the Unknown

By Karis Mulcahy

In 2020, Mallika Mitra, K’16, was breaking into the journalism industry through an internship position with Bloomberg News when the country shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mitra, who had been pursuing a career in journalism since her years at K College, was put into a difficult position since the internship position was not a steady one. “I didn’t have a job come March when the internship ended” she said.

A career in journalism was something she’d been working towards for years. Her freshman year of college, Mitra took the Introduction to Journalism course with Dr. Marin Heinritz. This course helped her realize her passion for writing, leading her to pursue graduate school at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, at CUNY, where Mitra graduated with a degree in business and economics journalism in 2019. Her internships with Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) and Bloomberg News further helped her enter the journalism market.

The pandemic brought uncertainty to many industries, journalism included. Despite this Mitra knew she wanted to be a journalist, so she persevered, using her graduate degree to land a job at Money Magazine as a finance reporter, and worked her way up to become an editor at the magazine.

While Mitra enjoyed her position at Money Magazine, she found herself wanting more variety and freedom in her professional life, so after several years she made the leap to work for herself as a freelance journalist. Now, Mitra has the freedom to write for a multitude of publications, such as Business Insider and the Wall Street Journal’s Buy Side. However, Mitra mulled over going freelance for years, held back by the uncertainty freelance work holds. “There are a lot of reasons people are really worried to go into freelance that are all super valid. Obviously, money and security is a big one, and that was a fear for me,” Mitra said.

But Mitra has found she was well-prepared for life as a freelancer thanks to her experiences at K. “I think K prepared me in that I’m adaptable,” Mitra said, explaining how her ability to move between the numerous projects she juggles comes from the courses and professor she had at K. Mitra said the attitude of her K professors was “very supportive and very challenging,” which helped her gain the skills she uses in her day-to-day life.

At the moment, Mitra is working on stories about cash-back rewards, young people investing in Roth IRAs, and the business side of fertility clinics. Mitra said that she is pitching business and company related stories simultaneously and that she is “jumping from different tones” writing the different articles she works on simultaneously. “It’s definitely a range and that’s a bit challenging,” Mitra said.

Even though she had some fears about instability, switching from a structured position to freelance has worked well for Mitra. “Setting my own schedule, giving myself vacation days, that kind of thing I really like,” Mitra said. The flexibility of freelance journalism has allowed Mitra to make major life changes, such as moving to Chicago with her fiancé. With a wedding planned for the summer of 2025, the newfound freedom of her career works in her interest. While many might find so much career freedom difficult to manage, Mitra was able to adapt to her career shift so quickly thanks to her time at K.

Mitra’s interest in the college was further piqued by the programs K could offer her. “I really liked K’s study abroad aspect,” Mitra said. Her general interest in the college led her to take a trip to Kalamazoo College, where she sat in on a poetry class. “I’m not really a big poetry person but I just loved the way that the class functioned, it was like a workshop,” Mitra said. The positive class experience finalized Mitra’s decision. Looking back on these crucial moments in her life, Mitra feels confident it was the right decision.

Before her freshman year, Mitra took part in K’s LandSea program, an outdoor orientation program meant to build community between first-year students. Through this program, she met Josefina Cibelli, K’16, who to this day remains a close friend after having gone through the highs and lows of college together. Cibelli has a unique perspective on Mitra and watched “her evolve as a leader” on LandSea. Cibelli “noticed how driven she was and how motivated,” from the beginning of their friendship she said.

The evolution of her leadership skills also inspired journalism professor Dr. Heinritz to nominate Mitra for a coveted Enlightened Leadership Award when Mitra was a senior at K. Heinritz had worked closely with Mitra throughout her four years at K, as a student in all the journalism and creative nonfiction classes, as a TA in her workshop courses, as well as on her SIP. Though Heinritz remembered Mitra as “very reserved and shy” when they first met, she noted in her award nomination letter that Mitra “has shown again and again her uniquely enlightened leadership in and out of the classroom as well as on and off the page.” Mitra ultimately became editor of The Index and was on the selection committee for non-fiction work for The Cauldron. She “developed her own writing voice and personality on the page,” Heinritz said.

Mitra said the skills she developed due to challenges she met at K are now invaluable to her profession. Particularly her first journalism class with Professor Heinritz helped her realize she would need to grow academically to survive college courses. “I took Marin’s journalism class my first trimester ever at K, which was so intimidating,” Mitra said. Despite her initial feelings, Mitra was able to thrive in the journalism track at K. “I remember I didn’t speak at all in that first class and then I ended up doing my SIP with Marin,” Mitra reminiscences. Looking back, Mitra concludes that her experience in her first journalism class “was a good kick in the butt for what a college class would be.”

Mitra described the rest of her college experience as challenging but rewarding and character building. The atmosphere at K proved to be an integral part of this and Mitra said she was “always really encouraged by my professors to keep writing and challenging myself.” The skills she learned in college are crucial to the writing she does today. “K also gave me the ability to receive feedback and constructive criticism and actually use it well and that is just what it takes to become a better writer,” Mitra said.

Being a freelance writer has had so many upsides for Mitra, including giving her the chance to work on passion projects in addition to paid, published articles, such as a newsletter covering television dramas.

“It’s important to analyze how T.V. impacts us and how it impacts society,” Mitra said. While a paid version of the newsletter is being discussed, for the moment, it is just two friends writing for fun. “It’s totally just like our personal project,” Mitra said. The flexibility that allows Mitra to take the time to write the newsletter is thanks to her freelance schedule.

Beyond her television newsletter, Mitra has been experimenting with other forms of writing. “I’ve been writing fiction on the side, and I have my friends from K read that,” Mitra explains. Since her time at K, Mitra has been laser focused on her journalism work. Being able to branch out and explore other areas of writing has been an enjoyable side project as she continues to focus on her main articles and projects. The flexibility to do so is thanks to her newfound self-employment.