2010 Graduate Lands Job in New York State Capitol Building
ALBANY– “It is a little bit intimidating,” 2010 King’s College graduate Alyssa Plock admits. When the 22-year-old enters the front door of the State Capital Building each day, the first thing she sees is the Assembly Chamber.
Plock then makes her way up the “million-dollar staircase” to the third floor where her office is sandwiched between The New York Times, The Times Union and The Daily News. It is here that Plock works for Cuyler News, which, like the other newspapers, is a part of the Legislative Correspondence Association.
Plock’s daily tasks at Cuyler News include morning press conferences with Governor Cuomo and collaborating on news articles with her boss Betty Flood, of whom “one of the guys around the office said, ‘she’ll make you cry,’ but she’s great.” The New York Times says, “Still reporting after 54 years in the Capitol, Ms. Flood, 75, is the longest-serving correspondent in the association and can recall when women were not allowed to join.”
The Legislative Correspondence Association is like the Associated Press in that it collects information for other papers. The New York Post, Bloomberg News, Associated Press and Buffalo News also share this floor of the capital building.
“My work is a lot of information coming at you all day,” Plock said. “It's fun. It has this camaraderie even though it is very competitive. Also, I am in a job where I have a front page article in a magazine, and I love that.”
Plock graduated in May 2010 and began working at Culyer News in August of 2011. Through the gap of time in between, she held several less glamorous jobs, including one at Bath and Body Works and another at a day care center.
The now-reporter said that it was this “miserable year that taught her who she is apart from titles.”
“I wouldn’t trade last year for anything,” Plock said, because it was then she learned to wait on God. “It was so hard. It was lonely at times. It was the time in my life that I had to realize that I am a person without school, even if I never was a poster child for a college education.”
Plock says it is very important to “figure out what you love and ... do it because you love it.”
The reporter also says her degree of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics was the perfect fit because, “we had to deal with issues of gay marriage, and I remembered dealing with that topic in Dr. Tubbs's class. My economics came in handy in understanding everything here. Everything I studied came in handy. Philosophy helps you understand the minds behind the laws.”
When asked what advice she had for graduating seniors, Plock's grinning reply for those still in the ranks was, “do your homework.”