With the first presidential debate happening tonight, we couldn’t imagine a better spotlight subject than Kendall Breitman. Kendall, 23, currently works as a political reporter in New York City.

Maddie: Tell me what you do.
Kendall: I’m a political reporter at Bloomberg Politics.

M: What made you want to get into journalism and reporting?
K: I didn’t originally think about doing journalism at all. I always liked writing, but I didn’t want to do creative writing, so I didn’t really know what else was on the table. I took a journalism class, and that opened up the whole world of journalism to me. I started editing arts and entertainment for my school’s newspaper (I thought that was what I wanted to do). I got an internship doing political journalism, ended up loving that, so it all came together out of different situations in my life.

M: What is your favorite part about living in the city so far?
K: I am still getting to know New York and exactly why I love being here. I moved here two months ago, so a lot of it at this point is my job and where I’m living. I love the friends that I’m living near. What I love about New York right now is, after living in the same city for five years, I’m in a place where I don’t really know what my favorite bar is or where I’m going, what I’m doing. I get to discover what I like in the context of this new place, and that’s very exciting.

M: What are you most excited about for the next year?
G: I guess this is a nerdy answer, but I am so excited to be covering the campaign. It’s gonna be really cool. For the next year, I’m getting to go to debates and following candidates; it’s my first time doing it, so I’m really excited.

M: What do you feel like is the biggest challenge of your job?
K: Getting to know what people need in a new job, before they have to ask for it. Learning how to read the minds of the people you work with.

M: What career advice would you give to a recent grad or someone who is about to graduate?
K: So my old boss once told me (while I was looking for jobs before I graduated), treat the job finding process like you’re writing an article. Meaning like, figure out who you want to interview (where do you want to work?). From there, you find the department that you’re looking for. From that, who are the best sources to contact? For me, it was a writer that I liked. And then you ask them out and talk to them. And then you just follow the same process, keep talking to people, and by the end of it, you know everything you have to know. You build up to the story, if the story was “What’s Kendall Breitman’s next job?”

M: Do you have any advice for people who are trying to move to a new city post-grad?
K: Just do it.

M: If you could describe yourself using only three emojis, which emojis would describe you?
K: