Yasna Haghdoost (’17): double majored in English and Political Science. She is currently a reporter for Bloomberg News, based in Tbilisi, Georgia, covering Iran and Lebanon for a professional business audience. In February’s interview, Yasna talks about her experience working in a foreign country and how her undergraduate studies facilitated her career.
When did you graduate from Rice? What has post-graduation life been like for you?
I graduated from Rice in 2017 with a B.A. in English and political science and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t pre-med, I knew I didn’t want to apply to grad school until I got some “real-life” experience, and I was certain that I would hate doing one of those ill-defined corporate consultant positions that they were always recruiting for at Rice. I’m also Iranian and had an interest in the history and politics of the region, so I jumped at the chance to move to Beirut, Lebanon on a research fellowship about a month after I graduated. After that ended, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do so I applied to a bunch of random jobs in Beirut, got rejected a lot until I landed a copy editing gig at a local English-language daily newspaper. For the next several years I remained in Lebanon and very recently relocated to Tbilisi, Georgia to continue my work, which has been remote since the pandemic.
You mentioned that you’ve been working remotely since the pandemic. What has this been like with such a fast-paced job?
Until recently, Bloomberg’s Beirut bureau consisted of three staff: Me, another reporter and an editor who also served as the bureau chief. This meant that even when I first started out, I was communicating remotely with the majority of my colleagues, most of whom are based in Dubai, London or Tehran. So, in some ways, it doesn’t feel like a massive shift now that we’re two years into the pandemic and I’m running the terminal on my laptop instead of an office desktop; but even still, I really did miss the daily in-person interactions with my other Beirut bureau colleagues. The economic crisis in Lebanon rendered work from home increasingly difficult because of constant daily power cuts and a crumbling telecommunications sector that made internet connection nightmarish, and this was one of the main reasons behind my decision to leave.
What line of work are you currently in, and how long have you been doing it for? What does it entail, and what do you enjoy about it?
I’m currently a reporter for Bloomberg News, an international news agency with a focus on business news for industry professionals. I’m part of the team covering Iran, though I sometimes also contribute to Lebanon coverage. Our stories are published on the news wire within the Bloomberg Terminal, a computer software system to which big institutions like banks or governments and financial professionals like traders can subscribe. Most of my day-to-day job is monitoring for market-moving breaking news in Iran, which entails following Persian-language sources, newspapers and television within the country. My job requires making snap judgments about which developments qualify as newsworthy based on what the terminal clients are interested in, quickly sending headlines and writing stories that are immediately published on the news wire. I especially enjoy the fast-paced nature of the job and the rush of adrenaline that often comes with it.
Could you tell us more about your decision to join Bloomberg?
After about a year of working at a local paper, I felt that I wanted to try something new. More importantly, though, management was significantly delaying the payment of our salaries (sometimes for months on end) and when we did get paid, it wasn’t a lot of money. I was extremely lucky because just as I was looking for a way out, I learned that Bloomberg was hiring an Iran reporter in Beirut. It checked all the boxes for me: I got to have the experience of training and working at a big news agency, to follow Iranian political and financial news more closely, and to live in a city that I’d fallen in love with.
What are the advantages of working at a big news agency like Bloomberg? How is it different from your work experiences at other news agencies?
To be honest, my only professional journalism experience is a local daily paper versus a well-oiled global machine, so I can’t really speak beyond these two. But to answer your question: The differences are stark and the advantages are many. A company like Bloomberg obviously pays more, the training is more rigorous, you have more access to mentorship and to collaborate with colleagues across different beats, there’s a vast amount of data at your disposal via the terminal, and people you’re trying to talk to are less likely to blow you off when you drop the Bloomberg name. I’m still glad to have had some local news experience though: The newsroom was much, much smaller, so every day I got to work very closely with my colleagues, many of whom were young and starting out (just like me), and focusing solely on daily Lebanon coverage gave me a lot of granular knowledge that came in handy when I moved to a job with broader regional scope.
What are some of the most interesting/exciting projects that you have worked on? What is something that surprised you in your current line of work?
It’s been incredibly insightful working on big Iran-related files: Whether it’s the pandemic, and the effect of U.S. sanctions and Iranian domestic policy on the procurement of hospital equipment & vaccines, or the ever-ongoing nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers, whose consequences have significant ramifications on oil markets and regional politics. I’m not sure that anything especially surprised me on the job, but my key takeaway is that everything is about money, something you’d be hard-pressed to miss while working for a news agency whose primary audience is the rich and powerful. If you want the real story, you’ve got to always follow the money.
What advice would you give to other students considering a journalism (or writing) career outside of the U.S.?
Living in a foreign country will force you to learn and grow in incalculable ways that I don’t think you can replicate with any other experience. I won’t glamorize it though. When I was broke and trying to pay rent and student loans, I supplemented my meager salary with editing college application essays for high schoolers. I’ll be upfront and say that I’m not sure I would’ve taken the risk to stay in Lebanon if I didn’t have a safety net in the form of financially secure parents, but I have friends who made it work without that security because they have more guts than I do. Lots of other people starting out their journalism careers in Beirut began either like me, at a local publication, or as freelancers pitching to different outlets in the hopes of gaining more recognition and experience, then applying for regional staff job openings at big organizations as they pop up. All of this is to say that it’s doable, but it’ll likely require a certain measure of luck, hustle (ugh I hate that word, sorry) and/or financial privilege. Oh, and one final note: If you’re going to report on a country, please make an effort to learn the language and don’t just lift work from local journalists, otherwise you’re just another annoying and useless American abroad.
What experiences (pre-undergrad, at Rice, or post-graduation) influenced your decision to pursue this career? How did your training in the English major help you with the type of work you’re currently doing?
I joined the Rice Thresher as a freshman; I saw an advertisement for writers in the Arts and Entertainment section, and so, in what appears to be a recurrent theme in my life, I randomly fell into something that would end up being hugely formative. I became Editor-in-Chief my senior year, where I worked with a stellar team of reporters and editors under the guidance of our adviser, Kelley Lash, to whom I’m deeply indebted for providing me with a top-notch journalism education. Working in a student newsroom taught me how to write a lede, ask good questions, and the ethics of covering sensitive subjects. Without the Thresher I’m not sure I would have gone into journalism at all, as I couldn’t afford to do an unpaid journalism summer internship (the industry is particularly exploitative in this regard) and so I may not have even learned that this was something I’d like doing in the first place.
Of course, as an English major, I also got lots of practice writing, connecting dots across disparate ideas and synthesizing materials from different sources into a coherent narrative. While the newsroom style guide differs somewhat from the works of Milton, Chaucer or Richardson, I can attribute my education in those and other authors to my own confidence as a writer.
What do you most fondly remember from being a Rice English major? What was your favorite English class at Rice and how has that influenced you as a writer?
Being an English major was one of the most pleasurable parts of my education at Rice. In a world where it often feels that young people are pushed to hone technical skills to enhance their prospects in the job market, there was something profoundly liberating about reading and analyzing beautiful literature for its own sake, and as a way to understand history, philosophy and politics.
I can honestly say I enjoyed all of my English classes, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the semester I spent reading Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa with Dr. Sarah Ellenzweig. It was extremely satisfying to spend several months sinking my teeth into one of the longest books in the English language while grappling with interesting philosophical questions (is the author dead?) and to understand the text within its historical context (18th century marriage values). The class inspired me to pursue these ideas further in my senior thesis with Dr. Ellenzweig, and the analytical skills I gained from the effort were priceless.
What would you say is the strength of a training in the humanities and its application beyond the university in the “real world”?
Moving to Lebanon, encountering ideas and perspectives that were novel to me, then finally watching a vibrant country slide into economic collapse had profound effects on my worldview and my own sense of self. It might sound silly, but books and literature were an important part of helping me process and understand what was happening during this time.
What advice would you give, if you could, to your undergraduate self?
The following is probably more applicable to people gearing up to graduate, but it can be a bit scary to stand up for yourself so the sooner you internalize this advice (if you haven’t already) the better off you’ll be. When you get a salaried job, ask for more money than they’re offering before accepting. Worst case, they say no. Ask for a raise a year into your job. Worst case, they say no. Know your worth and your rights in the workplace and don’t let an employer take advantage of your time, labor or skills. Always advocate for yourself because if you don’t, no one else will. Your 20’s are a time when you will likely have to deal with stressful, unsexy stuff like paying your bills and finding an apartment without cockroaches, but they can also present an exciting opportunity to plunge into the unknown: Don’t pay too much mind to the fear of uncertainty, and enjoy the thrill of being young, stupid and a bit reckless. College is really just the beginning.