By Katie Hanson ’25
Nejra Kravic ’21 has worked around the world, writing articles as an intern at Morocco World News, planning the South East European Film Festival in West Hollywood, and now supporting women in rural Bosnian communities through the non-profit ŽivAktiv. Yet, when Kravic talks about her career path, she keeps coming back to the same point—her time as a Motley Coffeehouse barista and facilities manager.
“I like working for a very mission-driven organization. That’s something that I think I would not value as highly had I not gone to Scripps,” Kravic says. “At the Motley, we had a very clear mission statement, and we would always be reworking it. That was an immensely formative experience and completely changed how I saw the world. It’s not just show up, do your work, and then leave—it’s ‘How can we change this and make this better?’”
To say Kravic was involved on campus is an understatement. During her time at Scripps, Kravic also worked as a Scripps Presents usher, a summer conference assistant, an international student mentor, a community coordinator, and rented equipment to students interested in filmmaking at Pomona College’s Studio 47. In addition to these positions, Kravic served as the managing editor of The Claremont Journal of International Relations.
Within the classroom, she continued her dedication to learning and community. As a media studies major and Middle East and North Africa studies minor, she worked on a year-long thesis inspired by the film Caché, which she watched in a global cinema class at Pomona.
Beyond the classroom, with support from The Writing Center and Career Planning & Resources, she was able to pursue several summer internship opportunities, including her time with the South East European Film Festival. Kravic says one of her favorite parts of her academic experience was collaborating with faculty and students throughout the 5Cs.
“My experiences have been very, very different, which is awesome, because now I feel like I can do anything,” she says. “But I 100 percent wouldn’t have had those experiences if I wasn’t at Scripps.”
Her career opportunities continued during her semester abroad in Rabat, where she worked for Morocco World News as an editorial intern. The School for International Training (SIT) program, Scripps’ partner program for students studying abroad in Morocco, focused on developing students’ journalistic skillset as they covered regional issues.
Although Kravic’s stay in Rabat was cut short in the spring of 2020 due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she recently received the Alice Rowan Swanson Fellowship, which will allow her to return to Morocco. The fellowship, awarded biannually through SIT, provides study abroad students with funding for a self-designed project that draws on the themes of their program and furthers human rights.
Kravic’s project centers on a partnership with the Connect Institute, a nonprofit she worked with during her stay in Morocco that aims to empower young Moroccans through informal education. Kravic is excited to host a series of media literacy workshops for young people beginning in March. The workshops will cover a variety of themes from critical engagement to op-ed tutorials with 8–15 people in each session, mimicking a liberal arts environment.
“I would like participants to become more aware of what they’re looking at and not just consume media mindlessly,” Kravic says. “I’m hoping they can think twice about what they’re watching and how it relates to other systems and their own background.”
While planning to head to graduate school to study journalism or communications, Kravic stays busy as a freelance journalist covering class and gender inequality in her home country of Bosnia and as a partner of ŽivAktiv, a nonprofit supporting women in rural Bosnia through community service and education. It’s work that builds on her Scripps-informed mission of community betterment—and reinforces her continued sense of belonging to the Scripps community itself.
“We’re pretty tight knit. It’s very hard to beat,” Kravic says. “Even though I’m literally across the world, I still talk to my Scripps friends daily. I know that experience is officially over, but it certainly doesn’t feel like that, just because of my community.”