Rukshana Munasinghe

Student

“We have a dedicated staff that tries to inform and represent the entire SMC community. We work really hard to make the Corsair professional.”

Aside from the SMC Police Department’s office, there’s one phone number where you can count on reaching someone nearly any time of day. It’s the newsroom of the Corsair, where you’ll find bleary-eyed students writing, editing, and composing ’til the wee hours of the morning to make their deadlines. It’s a pressure-packed world that Rukshana Munasinghe hopes will be the bridge to her future as a journalist.

“I’m the Corsair’s Life and Leisure editor, and though it’s a lot more work than I ever thought it would be, it’s also a lot of fun,” she says. “Because I’m an international student, I can’t work off campus unless I get an internship. But I’m getting so much practical experience now that I hope it’ll be a springboard for me to work at a real newspaper.”

The political situation in her native Sri Lanka is one of the forces that made Rukshana come to SMC. “We’ve had more than 12 years of civil war, and the universities keep shutting down, which is frustrating. So I had to come to the US to get my degree.” But another driving force behind Rukshana’s ‘ex-pat’ education was her grandmother.

“Even when I was a toddler, she was telling me that I must go to university. She fought for women’s rights in my country and became a member of Parliament. She encouraged me in my life, and she’s the real reason I’m here. And when I do go home,” adds Rukshana, “I want to get involved in social issues and the problems that women and children have in the Third World.” Grandmother: You must be very proud.

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