“In order to break through, you have to have something different about you. That’s why I chose Columbia.”

Parisa Khosravi left her home country of Iran for Arlington Heights, Illinois, just before the Islamic revolution in 1979. Two years later, as a high school sophomore watching live coverage of the American hostages’ release, Khosravi saw her future.

“I decided I wanted to be a journalist,” Khosravi says. “I was just mesmerized. I was just thinking, ‘I want to be right there in the middle of it.’ It was such an incredible moment.”

Her teacher at the time, however, dismissed her dream, saying she’d have little future in the competitive world of TV news as a non-native English speaker. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Khosravi, who earned a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Columbia in 1987, has spent nearly 25 years with CNN, helping cover some of the world’s most historic moments.

She has worked her way to the top of the organization, where she now serves as senior vice president of international newsgathering for CNN Worldwide. Khosravi oversees more than 70 reporters and 33 bureaus around the world, along with the international assignment desk and International Newsource with more than 200 international affiliates.

Even as a freshman at Columbia, Khosravi displayed her resourcefulness and persistence, becoming the rare first-year student to score an internship. She ended up completing seven internships during her time at Columbia, building an impressive resume before the ink had even dried on her diploma.

In an on-campus interview shortly before graduation, CNN offered her an entry level job as a video journalist on the spot.

Khosravi says Columbia helped prepare her for the fast-paced world of international reporting.

“[Columbia] was a very different type of school,” she says, noting the college’s hands-on approach to learning. “It was very open. It was very out-of-the-box at that time. In order to break through. you have to have something different about you. That’s why I chose Columbia.”

Khosravi has had a hand in covering most of the world’s major news events of the last quarter century: the fall of the Berlin Wall, genocide in Rwanda, the end of apartheid, Tiananmen Square, war in the Balkans, the tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, and many others.

“Every story has had its own impact,” Khosravi says. “You see a lot of hardships. You see a lot of misery. At the same time, there are stories that really inspire and give you hope.”

While directing coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Somalia in the early 1990s, Khosravi convinced a commercial airline to divert a plane to ferry CNN journalists so the reporters could be on the ground for the fast-breaking news.

“I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” Khosravi says. “I go after a story. I’m persistent.”

—Heather Lalley