When I was around 12 years old, living in a small town in Hungary, I already knew I wanted to be a journalist, but I never dared to dream that I would one day have the chance to work at a place like EURACTIV or that I would practice journalism in Brussels. Fast forward to the autumn of 2022, I remember reading past fellows’ reports and now, here I am, writing my own.

I joined EURACTIV’s tech hub in the middle of March 2023. I studied journalism during my Masters in the Netherlands and worked as a journalist in Budapest before, but I did not have any experience in technology. This made the start of my work both challenging and exciting. However, what I would like to emphasize already in my first report is, how grateful I am to so many people. To Aulde and Charles, the parents of Lénaïc, for their never-ending kindness and for seeing something in me that made them choose me as the next Lénaïc Fund for Quality Journalism fellow. And to all my colleagues at EURACTIV – who never said “no” to helping me with anything, no matter what I asked for. I am especially grateful to the hub’s editor, Luca Bertuzzi, and to my tech co-workers, Molly Killeen and Alina Clasen. I won’t say anything new when I tell you that journalists are busy people, so their patience and helpfulness are highly appreciated.

Despite being welcomed by such a great team, at times, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of information I thought I should immediately understand, even though no one expected that from me. Now, after more than a month, I accepted that it is a process, like everything else. That, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that there are no times when I feel overwhelmed or unsure of myself – to be honest, I doubt that feeling will ever fully go away. But it does mean that I enjoy the work very much. I think I already learned a lot: I met a lot of people from the EU bubble, attended several events, watched Ashton Kutcher deliver a speech, and interviewed a Member of the Parliament, all within a month. I am very aware of how lucky I am to experience all this and how much I still have to learn, yet it is crazy to think about how quickly all this becomes the norm when working in such circles.

I already had the pleasure to meet two of the past fellows as well, Sarah Anne and Louise, and I can’t wait to meet the others, too. I am looking forward to the rest of my fellowship.

If you are interested, you can read my work here, and follow me on Twitter here.