Setting His Pace

It all started with a Razor scooter for communications student Andre Arias ’18. His aunt, a world-traveling sports journalist, returned home from a work trip abroad with the toy for Arias one Christmas, putting the coveted scooter in his hands before all other American kids his age. And his interest and experience in the communications field has only grown since then.

Arias is an active member of the Pace Community who has served as a UNV101 peer leader, worked on student engagement for Dyson’s Center for Community Action and Research, helped win a Distinguished Delegation award for Pleasantville’s Model United Nations team at the 2015 National Model UN Conference, and more. On top of it all, he’s taken up to 25 credits some semesters. But he’s putting most of that on hold now in order to gain a new kind of experience—a production internship at Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS.

Serious about his career path and how to get there, Arias kept a tight schedule during his freshman and sophomore years in preparation for a future internship. “For me, I plan a lot ahead of time. So I had planned my Pace Path way before I even came to Pace. I knew that when I got to be a junior, I was going to have an internship. I think the Pace Path helps students to do what I did on my own,” he says.

In addition to putting in some extra credits in the classroom and face time into campus activities and organizations early on, one of the other ways he continues to try to get ahead is by checking in regularly with Career Service and his adviser Carol Dockery, who he praises for her support. Arias found his internship at Samantha Bee through Handshake, Career Services’ job and internship listing database, and applied to roughly 25 positions before starting his role at the show.

While he can’t elaborate on exactly what he does as a production intern at Samantha Bee, Arias does say that he’s heavily involved in the making of the show and gets to interact regularly with Samantha herself. So far, the show has been exactly what he hoped for in terms of gaining real world experience. “Especially in my field of communications, that’s all experience. I feel it’s important and hard to be learned behind a desk,” he says.

For example, Arias says he understands just how important a good resume can be when it comes to obtaining future career opportunities over fierce competition in the communications field. Not only that, but creating a resume early in a college career is good experience for other students in other disciplines as well. “I think for a lot of students, it allows you to actually see and reflect on your work experience,” he says.

Though his internship is a top priority these days, this go-getter Setter is keeping involved on campus and in politics, another interest of his, and is active in Student Government Association on the Westchester Campus. He’s also got his eye on the prize when it comes to sports journalism, hoping to cover the Rio Olympics, following in the footsteps of his jet-setting aunt.