Katie, a half-American, half-Japanese Columbia graduate, works in press and communications for a Massachusetts state representative. She chose politics over tech despite growing up in Silicon Valley, inspired by a Youth Commission role and congressional internship. Her job involves writing statements, managing social media, and talking to journalists.
Colombia, like, uh, she is half American, half Japanese. She is more fluent in English, so maybe we use English more than Japanese for this interview. So, your connection? So the first question is, what are you passionate about?
I was passionate about politics and the ways that it was gonna be able to help my community. I grew up in Silicon Valley, and it's very centered around technology and the ways that technology could help the world, and I found a lot of avenues through my local government, like at the city and state level, that through programs and policies that could help people's lives, and I really wanted to work on that. Yeah, I joined programs, it was called My City's Youth Commission, so it was a group of high school students who wanted to put on events and like bring the community together and we also had like policy recommendations for the city. And then I also interned for my home member of Congress, and both of those experiences I really liked and felt like they were ways I could make change and want to continue to.
I think like, so you are in, you are in the C company and you watch the technology are changing the world, and why you don't think like you want to work in a like technology tech company or something?
Yeah, I think a lot of my peers did it, and I think that kind of pushed me away because that it was like very, it was seen as like the one solution to making the world better, and I wanted to like explore other solutions. I felt like my experiences were really like impactful, and I wanted to, I guess, like do that more than technology.
And so you mean like you don't want to like pursue same way that other other do it. Yeah, you want to find your own way to impact more, right?
I think not my own way, like a lot of people. Yeah, but I think it was different from what a lot of my friends like were looking.
Yeah, yeah, I see. Okay, that's cool. So, so the reason you want to, um, so you want to enter Columbia University is like you want to learn politics more in the university? Yeah.
Oh, okay. Yeah, it was, you know, like outside Silicon Valley, and they have a lot of programs. The college I went to within Columbia was Barnard College, and it's all women's. Oh, so it focused on a lot on like women's like in politics and things like that, and there are a lot of programs that I really like.
How was your time in Colombia?
I really liked it. I think that there are a lot of people did political science, so it went from like none of my friends really like interested in it to like a lot of people. And I think that really like helps you to have that community and to have people supporting you and what you want to do.
So you learn a lot of politics all over the world, right? Right, and what do you think, like, about American politics? Like, do you think you have to change something, or like—
Um, I think that a lot of them— it was really interesting to learn about all of the theories of politics and how they're like very similar. Across the world. So I took one class on, um, democracy and like the ways democracy is like getting worse globally. Um, and it's— there's like the same patterns that are happening in America are also happening globally. Um, I think those are really like interesting topics.
Your interest in politics before entering the Columbia University, and your interest become change— your interest in politics change in the time at Columbia, or like become more specifically, or maybe like not.
Yeah, I think I got totally learn about specific areas like at a deeper level, and that was really interesting. I worked at a nonprofit that focuses on making housing more affordable in the Bay Area, so I learned about housing laws and like very local legislation, and that was really interesting, something I didn't know a lot about before. Okay.
Oh, can I ask, what are you doing in— what are you working for now?
Like what the job is?
Yeah, can I ask like what your job is now?
Yeah, so I'm working on press and in digital for a member. So it's like talking to reporters and journalists, um, and also working on their like social media, so the photos, videos, um, writing statements for the representative of Massachusetts.
Oh, okay. Oh, cool. What, what is like your, uh, the challenging, uh, challenging part of your job?
It's actually like a job I'm about to start, but I think that a lot of the— like, for the social media, a lot of the platforms are always changing, like the Facebook rules and things like that. So there's a lot had to like stay on top of and adapt.
Do you think that the experience in Columbia University helped your job now?
Um, I think in some ways it did. It's not a super common path, so not a lot of other people like do, um, this path from Columbia, but I think that's helpful for learning like the like theory and the like foundations of government and political science. I do a lot of the like communications work and the like especially the like digital like the photo and video and those things were all things I learned through like internships and like outside of the classroom.
Okay, so like the thing you learn, not only the thing you learn in the classrooms, but also like learning outside the classroom helpful, become helpful for your job.
