Ep 15: Ella Joaquin

Ella Joaquin is a podcast transcription intern on the Borne the Battle podcast team. Ella is currently a sophomore at Loyola University Chicago where she majors in economics and information systems and minors in math. She is interested in a career in the foreign service and opportunities in data analytics and consulting.

Ella has recently finished her finals at college and is excited to tell us more about her experience at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as a podcast transcriptionist. Ella found this internship through the state department website, where she saw the Virtual Student Federal Service (VSFS) program and applied to the Digital Media Engagement (DME) team. Ella went to the DME website where she read blog posts that detailed the experiences of student interns and other content like Borne the Battle podcast and the DME Intern Podcast. Ella has learned more about Veterans and Veteran culture by listening to them tell their stories on the Borne the Battle episodes that she transcribes for the podcast team. She also enjoys doing captions for webinars outside her department, such as the one she did for Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) that works to prevent homelessness with Veterans and support their families.

For her internship work, Ella receives a rough transcript and has to make it legible and accessible for people that meets accessibility standards. Ella describes how her role as a transcriptionist affects other people, “I just like thinking about who this helps.” Along with Tanner, the host of Borne the Battle and head of the VA podcast team, Ella sees all aspects of the podcast come together in different ways; and as a team member, Ella notices how the graphics, blog posts, interviews, editing, and transcriptions of the podcast are delegated to many interns who have the responsibility to do a good job and should be encouraged by their work and the end results of the podcast.

On her free time, Ella loves baking pandesol and has recently planted Bonsai seeds with her friends on Zoom.