Kate Duguid poses for a portrait, at Reuters headquarters, in New York, May 5, 2016. REUTERS/Chip East (UNITED STATES)

Kate Duguid is a bonds and currency reporter at Reuters. Most recently, she has covered the U.S. economy and trade in articles, including “Two-Year Yields Tick Up On Steady U.S. Job Growth Data,” “Yield Curve Steeper After Trump Threatens China Delisting,” and ”Dollar lifted by U.S.-China Trade Optimism.” She graduated from the GC with an M.A. in 2017.

Leo Tamamizu: How did your experience in the M.A. program better prepare you for your job as a reporter for Reuters?

Kate Duguid: I use the skills I learned at the Graduate Center in my work every day. I’m better at understanding complex systems, building arguments, and reading texts closely because of my coursework in political theory. Working under Paisley Currah for my Master’s thesis made me a better and more coherent writer. I rely on knowledge gleaned from classes with David Jones on political polarization, and Corey Robin on the history of conservatism, every time my financial reporting has delved into politics. 

LT: How did you transition from academic work to journalism? Do you have any advice for GC students looking to work in journalism?

KD: When I started at the GC, I initially thought I wanted to do academic work. Learning that I was better suited for a different kind of writing may be the most valuable lesson I learned in the program. And even after that realization, there was still loads to gain from my coursework that has made me a better reporter. For students interested in working in journalism, I would suggest finding an area of expertise. The most in-demand reporters I’ve met are those who are experts on certain topics or methods of analysis – feminist economics or regression analysis, say.

LT: Which skills you learned at the GC that are most critical to your work as a journalist?

KD: The ability to critically assess sources of information and use them to build an argument and to write clearly and plainly.

LT: What’s your fondest memory of your time at the GC? 

KD: I loved reading Hegel with Susan Buck-Morss and writing my thesis with Paisley Currah.    Susan is among the best living Hegel scholars, and is responsible for one of the few truly original analyses of the master-slave dialectic in the last 50 years. It was a pleasure to learn from her. 

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