Victor Ocasio

I knew I wanted to be a writer of some sort from a very young age, but what kind remained an unanswered question years after a well-meaning fourth-grade teacher first suggested I pick up storytelling.

For nearly a decade, I’ve covered business at Newsday, starting as an intern in the summer of 2014, and making my way to my current position covering labor and employment. Originally from Kissimmee, Florida, I moved to New York after my internship ended in a job offer, trading the views of Cinderella’s castle for wintertime snow and good pizza.

I’ve always enjoyed talking to people and learning about their areas of expertise, their passions, and their concerns.

While working with my talented colleagues at Long Island’s hometown paper has undoubtedly made me a better reporter and person, my passion for journalism and storytelling dates back to college.

I had the good fortune of securing some much-needed financial aid to cover the costs of schooling. But with grants only covering so much, I worked part time in the evening at a well-known Medieval-themed dinner show, tights and all.

If I wasn’t there heralding the entrance of the king, crunching for exams, or crawling through traffic on my way to campus, I was covering stories for my local community college paper, the Valencia Voice.

I went on to attend the University of Central Florida — couldn’t seem to shake the knights on horseback motif, it seems — where I would go on to land five internships, covering everything from local nightlife to Orlando’s business scene.

It was during that time, working for my college paper and covering assignments as an intern, that I discovered what made journalism worth pursuing: the people.

Not just the people I worked with – though then and now I’ve been honored to call myself a colleague of some truly brilliant journalists – but the people I had the opportunity to meet and interview.

I've always enjoyed talking to people and learning about their areas of expertise, their passions, and their concerns. It’s an important aspect of the job that has never gotten old and I suspect never will.

After landing my sixth and final internship at Newsday, I made the right decision to travel north and had one of the most energizing and educational summers of my life. In many ways, that summer of learning has never ended.