Washington Post satirist David Jorgenson spoke to a crowd of students in the learning commons March 21 as part of SM North’s Career Seminar Series.

Jorgenson, a 2009 North graduate, was contacted by Instructional Coach Kate Miner and asked to give a presentation about his journalism career.

“Ms. Tate had been sending out videos [of Jorgenson’s work] to a few of us that she knew would appreciate it because Dave went here and we knew him,” Miner said. “Since I was already doing this series, I thought, ‘I’ll ask Dave.’”

Jorgenson, who has given presentations to school groups in the past, agreed to speak at North.

“I’ve done it more recently,” Jorgenson said. “In fact, more often what I’ve done is I’ve spoken at Boy Scout events.”

Jorgenson said he was impressed with the number of students who came to hear him speak.

“It was great. It was engaged,” he said. “About a year ago, I have a friend who teaches at Pembroke Hill, and so I spoke for her kids. Her kids were great, but they were quiet. Everyone here was a little older and they were very engaged. I was excited that everyone was looking at had rapt attention. I was very impressed.”

Senior Sierra Hawley attended the seminar to get a glimpse of what her future career path might look like.

“I chose to go to this because it’s a career I’m interested in and I thought it would be interesting to see how someone else got to be where I want to be in the future,” Hawley said. “It was interesting to see how much fun he had at a job that I eventually want to do, because that’s great to have fun at your job.”

Miner agreed that one of her favorite parts of Jorgenson’s presentation was his enthusiasm for his career.

“Telling students to have fun with their future careers, I loved that,” Miner said. “If you’re not having fun with what you do, why do it?”

Jorgenson also spoke to the skills he learned in high school that helped him in his career and emphasized that not all of these skills were learned in the classroom.

“He talked about some of the soft skills that he got in high school,” Miner said. “Some of them were in the classroom but some of them were out of the classroom, like pep club and drumline. Some of those things that you may not think will help you in the future really do, and it’s not necessarily with a teacher standing in front of the room telling you what you need to know.”

In addition to what he learned in high school, Jorgenson said college internships helped him develop the skills he would need as a journalist and satirist.

“I think it really is about internships and the people you meet,” Jorgenson said. “You should do internships and networking, and if you go to a school that has a great journalism program, that’s even better.”

Though one of the more impressive parts of his resume was an internship with late night host Stephen Colbert, Jorgenson said that his career has not always been easy.

“Mine has two steps forward and one step back,” he said. “It was never bad, but I always give the Sparknotes version of what happened. There was a period after college where I went to L.A. for nine months and didn’t really get a good job. Then I got a job; it wasn’t a good job, but it was a job.”

However, he believes future journalists should not be discouraged; despite the perception that journalism is a dying field, he thinks there are more positions opening up now than ever.

“It’s getting easier because there’s more jobs,” Jorgenson said. “I would recommend seeking out a place like the Post because there’s a tendency to want to save those institutions. My friend works at CNN now and she just turned 20. It’s a certain amount of tenacity and making the most of an opportunity.”