Juggling act
It all adds up
At 17, below-par math skills kept Inigo de Amescua from studying journalism in Spain, where the profession is reserved for top scholars.
Thirteen years later, the Madrid native is a graduate student at the College on a Fulbright scholarship pursuing his second master’s degree in journalism.
A student, writer and photographer, Amescua juggles writing 30-page papers for school, covering the international music scene for the Madrid magazine Mercado de Fuencarral (MDF), and photographing fashion, news and rock ‘n’ roll for Vanity Fair Spain. He’s the Web site editor for Fiber, the official publication for the Festival Internacional de Benicassim, an annual alternative music festival in Spain. He blogs weekly for one of his three Web sites. And he takes 12 hours this semester instead of the minimum nine required for full-time status.
“It’d be great if every student had his work ethic,” says Prof. Mindy McAdams, Amescua’s Journalist’s Toolkit 1 teacher. “He looks at school like an opportunity, not a burden.”
Amescua is racing to graduate a semester early in December.
“I never take it easy,” he says.
Amescua was always attracted to American culture. As an ambitious 14-year-old lacking Internet access, he learned English by listening to Bob Dylan and Marvin Gaye. Two years later, he devoured Jack Kerouac’s scroll of spontaneous road trips across America in the 1957 novel On the Road.
“That’s when I knew I wanted to come here,” he says. “That’s when I knew I wanted to be a journalist.”
Before turning to journalism, Amescua settled on a degree in Library Sciences from Universidad Carlos II de Madrid. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Universidad SEK in Segovia, where he finished first in his class, and a master’s degree in professional journalism at Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
After seven years of studying, Amescua landed a job writing, editing and photographing Spanish design and architecture for Experimenta, Spain’s most prestigious design magazine.
“I wasn’t just a writer anymore,” he says.
Amescua was still unfulfilled. He had a thirst for American culture and a need to experience it firsthand. He applied for the Fulbright Foundation Foreign Student Program, which brings students from foreign countries to U.S. universities for their PhD or master’s degree.
It was 9 a.m. on day 10 of his 21-day tour of the U.S. when an e-mail from the Fulbright Foundation Spanish Commission popped up on his computer. He was in a Memphis hotel and had one week to return to Madrid for an interview for the prestigious fellowship.
He couldn’t sleep on the eight-hour red-eye home due to turbulence, unsettled nerves and frantic preparation for his interview. He landed an hour late, leaving only two hours to make his appointment. Jet-lagged, exhausted and pessimistic, Amescua shuffled into his 11 a.m. interview. At 3 p.m., he groggily answered the phone. It was the secretary of the Fulbright Foundation Spanish Commission.
“She said, ‘This is off the record, but congratulations,’ ” Amescua recalls. “I thought she meant for being on time to the interview.”
Ten months later, Amescua packed his bags and relocated to Gator Nation headquarters.
The culture shock and climate change were obvious adjustments, but Amescua was unprepared for the intense workload that came with going back to school on top of his numerous freelancing gigs.
“If he was having trouble adjusting, I didn’t see him sweat,” says Assistant Prof. Johanna Cleary, who taught Amescua’s Mass Communication Theory class his first semester.
“I’ve learned how to make the most of my time,” Amescua says.
He plays midfield in Friday and Sunday soccer games. Some nights, he bikes downtown to cover the music scene for his blog.
“He’s passionate about passion,” says Tommy Maple, JM 2003, a classmate of Amescua’s since 2007. “He always has a fire about something.”
Even though the bulk of his time is spent writing late into the night at his Hawaiian Village apartment, Amescua doesn’t think of himself as a writer.
“I can’t write in English as fast as I think in Spanish,” he says. “I find it easier to speak with images. It’s what I think I’m good at.”
On top of his routine work, he’s willing to take on the extras, giving a presentation about Spanish culture to 90 students in the College’s study-abroad program who traveled to Greece and Spain this summer.
“I don’t mind working 12 hours a day because I’m doing something I like,” he says. “And if you like the things you’re working on, it’s never too much. It’s life, not work, and it’s fantastic.”
This article was originally published in the Fall 2008 issue of communigator.
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