Pursuing her dream career, Shriya Bhattacharya ’18 is using her voice to tell meaningful stories in the world of journalism. —By Adrienne S. Harris With the confidence she developed at Agnes Scott College, Shriya Bhattacharya ’18 is building a successful career telling stories that reflect her identity and passions. One of the most important lessons Bhattacharya learned at Agnes Scott is that there are no limitations to who she can be and what she can achieve – that no dream is too big to pursue. So, even with no formal journalism training, she is living in New York City and working successfully as a freelance writer and editor. “Being in a college with women who were pursuing their passions had a huge influence on how I saw myself. It really helped with my self-confidence,” she says. “Agnes Scott instilled in me that I could do anything. I began to view myself as a leader and a self-starter, as someone who was worthy of achieving success, professionally and personally.”
Ironically, when Bhattacharya was applying to colleges, Agnes Scott was not on her radar. She was born in Philadelphia and lived in New Jersey, and when she was 12, her parents moved the family to Kolkata, India, where they are from. Bhattacharya attended high school there and decided she wanted to be a journalist, so she had narrowed her prospective colleges to 12 U.S. schools with journalism programs. The day that the Agnes Scott admissions team visited Bhattacharya’s high school in India, she was absent. “I didn’t meet the admissions counselor or see the presentation, but I heard about this college from my friends,” she says. “They called me and said, ‘Shriya, this is an amazing women’s college in Atlanta, Georgia. You have to check it out.’” The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
During her first year at Agnes Scott, Bhattacharya was enrolled in an introductory international relations course and discovered a new area of academic and professional interest. “That became my favorite class. I was so riveted by the subject matter and the professor,” she says. “I loved it because I view myself as a global citizen. I thought that if I chose to major in something this fascinating, I would be carving out a path for myself that I felt was natural.” Bhattacharya’s first job after graduating from Agnes Scott was at the United Nations Foundation. She started as a coordinator and was promoted to a program associate at the Universal Access Project, which protects and strengthens U.S. leadership on global sexual and reproductive health care, rights and justice. She enjoyed her work and even envisioned herself one day being director of UN Women. But somehow, she could never seem to escape the lure of journalism. On a UN Foundation Press Fellowship to Vancouver, British Columbia, the journalists she traveled with told Bhattacharya that with her organizational and people skills, she would make a great journalist—and they stressed that the industry needed more storytellers from diverse backgrounds. “That was when the thought of journalism first reentered my mind,” she says, “but I brushed it away when I went back to reality after the trip.” Later, on another work trip to Bangalore, India, Bhattacharya was asked to help interview women
“Agnes Scott taught me how to find my voice. Being able to use my voice in this way [as a journalist] now is a privilege that I don’t take lightly, because so many other people in this world aren’t able to use their voices, especially women and people of color. Journalism is my way of using that voice to give Photo by Sarah A. Murray
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these people the platform they need to share their stories.” — Shriya Bhattacharya ’18
