Fast Five: Ruby Topalian ‘26GS on the Importance of Student Journalism and Pursuit of the Truth

Welcome to Fast Five: Rapid-fire, insightful interviews with GS students and alumni!

Upon uncovering a prison extortion scheme while interning at a non-profit investigative outlet in Oklahoma, Ruby Topalian ‘26GS knew investigative journalism was her calling. A rising senior in the Dual BA Program with Trinity College Dublin, Topalian leans into her multifaceted academic journey (Middle Eastern and European languages and cultures major at Trinity, international history major and political science minor at Columbia) to carve her own path toward a career as a journalist.

From her campus experience working at Trinity News and The Eye (Columbia Spectator’s longform investigative magazine) Topalian shares what inspires her work as a student journalist, the relentless pursuit of truth, and what it’s like working as an investigations intern at NBCUniversal this summer.

Tell us your GS story in one sentence!

A two-year whirlwind of mind-blowing history classes, late-night library sessions, bagel hunting, Google Docs suggestion mode, and voice memos (journalism friends will understand!).

Your piece “Reporters Overnight: Macy Hanzlik-Barend on shaping WKCR’s journalistic voice post-encampment coverage” covered the life of fellow Dual BA student, Macy Hanzlik-Barend ‘25GS, and how integral humanization is to journalism. What was it like to research and write this piece?

Firstly, this piece was an important opportunity for me to understand how the pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protests unfolded on campus between 2023 and 2024. I’m a Dual BA student, so I spent my first two years of college in Ireland. Coming to Columbia as a student journalist, I felt a strong responsibility to educate myself on this recent history so I’d be prepared for future coverage. More broadly, my conversations with Macy made me reflect on what it really means to be a student journalist—and how that experience can shape a future in the field. Macy had never reported the news before she jumped into covering on-campus protests just days after October 7, 2023. She hadn’t gone through formal ethics training or completed a journalism internship. And yet, she understood—better than some professionals—a core journalistic principle: her job was to report the truth. The extraordinary quality of Macy’s work, and of the WKCR team more broadly, drove home something I’ll carry with me: as long as student journalists let truth be their guiding compass, there are no limits to what they can achieve.

You’re spending this summer at NBCUniversal as a Summer 2025 Investigators intern! What inspired you to get involved in the NBCUniversal internship program?

Yes, and I’m loving it! The inspiration was really my internship in Oklahoma last summer, where I worked at the non-profit investigative outlet, Oklahoma Watch. After spending two months filing FOIAs (Freedom of Information Act requests) and interviewing non-stop, I uncovered a prison extortion scheme there. Seeing how much that story meant to the women affected made me realize that investigative journalism is what I want to spend my life doing.

When internship application season rolled around in the fall and I was deciding what my next step would be, applying to NBC was a no-brainer. I’ve been following NBC’s investigative team since my first year of college, when I stumbled across their 2018 investigation about dangerous, U.S.-made medical devices exported around the world. The geographic extent of this coverage and the way human voices were centered made them a journalistic role model ever since.

Do you have any tips for thriving as an intern in NYC?

I always tell friends starting their first internships to aim higher than their job description. Although you should be primarily focused on completing work assigned by your boss, get curious and spend some time researching potential avenues that may open up opportunities for your own self-driven projects. I really don’t see internships as mere resume fillers—they’re a really unique chance to learn more about yourself and what makes you “tick.” Have fun and give every assignment that lands on your desk your all. Also—and I’m gonna sound like a parent here—invest in a good thermos and make your own coffee; no twenty-year-old intern should be spending seven dollars on coffee everyday.

Is there any advice you wish you had received before coming to Columbia University?

Give yourself the time and space alone to figure out what you believe in, not just what you want to do — everything else will fall into place once you’ve found your compass.