Growing up, whenever Giselle Rhoden saw Anderson Cooper, the famous broadcast journalist on TV, she’d tell her parents that would be her someday.
Giselle, a Bellarmine student double majoring in Communication and Spanish, has taken a major step toward achieving that lifelong dream. This January, she started an internship with CNN Digital covering race and inequality in the U.S.
“It’s a dream come true,” she said. “I honestly get kind of speechless talking about it.”
She’s hit the ground running and already published numerous pieces online. Seeing her first byline on CNN’s website “was probably the happiest I’ve ever been in my whole life.”
Giselle said she heard about the opportunity through Dr. Emily Dixon, interim director of Bellarmine’s Dr. Patricia Carver Office of Identity and Inclusion (OII), who encouraged her to apply. Giselle is engaged with OII programs, serves as a Knights of Color Mentor and is president of the Black Student Union.
“I’ve found so much support through the OII community and students of color on this campus,” she said. “They motivate me to be my best, just like with this internship.”
Giselle’s classes in her communication major helped her prepare for the internship, such as Digital Media Production and Fundamentals of Media Writing. She’s also worked with the Knights Media Network, the campus news service.
“That was definitely one of the reasons I got the job; I was already doing the work,” she said.
For now, the internship is virtual, but Giselle hopes she can land a fulltime gig at CNN’s Atlanta office someday. Staffers have told her they started out as interns and worked their way up.
“I want that to be my story,” she said.
Giselle is also enrolled in Bellarmine’s early entry Master of Science in Digital Media program.