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Spencer Bokat-Lindell is an Associate Editor at the new online media outlet Axios, Greek for “worthy.” But well before he was simplifying expert opinions to make them worthy of the public’s time, he was peeling white asparagus at Colicchio & Sons restaurant in Manhattan where he interned one summer during college. Spencer has worn many hats since he began his collegiate career at Yale University: he started his freshman year as a Chemistry major and aspiring chef, then, realizing neither was the right fit for him, switched to a French major with a heavy load of writing and extracurriculars. He spent three years with the nation’s oldest a cappella group, Yale’s “Whiffenpoofs,” including a gap year in which he and his fellow singers performed across the globe on a world tour. He then returned to school to graduate with his French degree in May 2017, facing the same end-of-college anxieties that many java junkies have endured before he secured an internship at Harper’s Magazine. Today he’s thriving at Axios, where he’s living proof that you don’t have to immediately know what you want to do to end up where you want to be, at least for now.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE:
- What the day-to-day of an editor at a major, national publication looks like
- How not to be totally intimidated when you’re in an entry-level editing position and are working on stories written by famous policy wonks
- How to approach complex foreign policy stories to make them more understandable to the general public
- How to change gears in college when you realize you’re not on the right career path
- How extracurriculars in college can really change your life for the better
- Why you don’t have to major in the field you want to work in
