Undergrad Profile: Brock Hrehor

Brock Hrehor is a 4th year Philosophy major at UC Santa Cruz. In 2023-2024 he was a THI Undergraduate Research Fellow. This year, Hrehor is a 2024-2025 Humanities EXCEL Fellow with The American Prospect (TAP) in an editorial internship. The Prospect is an online and print magazine devoted to promoting informed discussion on public policy from a progressive perspective. This fellowship is made possible by Michael Stern, TAP Board Member and UC Santa Cruz Volunteer. We were excited to check in with Hrehor, learn about what he is doing as an editorial intern, and why studying philosophy has been so valuable for his work.

Hi Brock, thank you so much for taking some time to talk to us today. Let’s start with hearing about your fellowship and who you are working with at the moment.

Sure thing, thanks for having me! My fellowship is an editorial internship at The American Prospect (TAP), a political magazine based in Washington D.C. that covers American policy and politics. I’m working under the wing of Gabrielle Gurley, a senior editor at the magazine who’s a very accomplished journalist and has been a fantastic mentor thus far. I also work with a couple of other interns who are based all around the country, which is a really cool way to meet other young people interested in learning about journalism and policy.

How interesting! Could you talk more about the work of The American Prospect and what drew you to this opportunity?

Definitely. TAP was founded in 1990 to combat the rising conservatism of the 1980s and, from my limited experience, seems to heavily focus on dissecting federal issues with particular emphasis on trying to reveal instances of corruption, corporate greed, and abuses of power. Needless to say, there’s an abundance of work to be done right now. The magazine is run by many preeminent voices in American political commentary, and TAP’s roster regularly features some really accomplished writers, academics, and political thinkers who are pushing back against the people plunging our government into kleptocracy. 

Not only am I currently working to further my ability to engage with media and policy, but this opportunity presented a way to do that without making some of the sacrifices that might come with moving for one of these opportunities.

I’d been interested in journalism and media for a while, and had previously done quite a bit of work with KZSC Santa Cruz. The opportunity to work at TAP offered a unique opportunity, not only in that I’d be able to further engage with a side of journalism (print) I had a lot of interest but little experience in, but it’s also given me the chance to do the type of internship that might typically be difficult for UCSC students to attain given our lack of proximity to a place like Washington. Not only am I currently working to further my ability to engage with media and policy, but this opportunity presented a way to do that without making some of the sacrifices that might come with moving for one of these opportunities. 

What are some aspects of being a philosophy student that have benefited your work at TAP?

It can often be hard to articulate the practical benefits of studying something like philosophy, but I firmly believe the discipline has provided me with a very strong foundation for the kind of work I do at TAP, and I wouldn’t replace it for anything else. Though it might seem cliche to tout ‘critical thinking skills’ as one of the most important benefits of an education in the humanities, I’ve found this — especially with the advent of AI and its impending replacement of countless jobs (even those once thought to be a secure path to steady employment) — to be the single most useful thing I’ve developed during my education. 

My philosophy courses, especially classes like symbolic logic and ethics, which have engaged with topics like decision theory, the detection of fallacies, and how to formally represent arguments, have all been helpful for what I do at TAP. The ability to identify faulty reasoning and biased arguments is an immensely useful task when trying to make sense of a source or how someone arrived at a particular position or political stance, and better helps me step out of my own worldview when trying to report something more objectively. I also feel that the reading skills gained from a philosophy degree, assuming the reading is actually done, deeply help with developing one’s mental stamina and their ability to more effectively synthesize complex information. Trying to glean the essential components from a wage theft report from the Economic Policy Institute, for example, seems a bit less daunting after trying to slog through something like Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. 

I firmly believe the discipline has provided me with a very strong foundation for the kind of work I do at TAP, and I wouldn’t replace it for anything else.

I could go on and on about how much I’ve enjoyed studying this stuff and why it’s helped me at my job and with making sense of the world around me more broadly, but those are some of the benefits that immediately come to mind. 

Are there particular experiences or challenges you have overcome that you will carry into your future career endeavors?

The editing process for my first article was a challenge. I’ve never worked with someone else so closely on drafting a piece of writing, and I felt like I was definitely being held to higher standards than I had previously experienced. Though getting to a final draft was a difficult process, it’s definitely a very necessary one and has made me a better writer and more open to criticism. 

Fact-checking other articles has also been a difficult task, but it’s definitely a skill that will help me down the line and I’m thankful for what it’s teaching me about verifying information and being able to sift through dense material to find what you’re looking for. 

Thank you so much! To wrap up, what is one place in Santa Cruz everyone should visit at least once?

Tacos El Chuy, best tacos in Santa Cruz, don’t come at me. 

Thanks for the opportunity to blab about my work a bit! 

The Mellon Foundation, The Helen and Will Webster Foundation, The Humanities Institute, the UCSC Humanities Division, and individual donors like Michael Stern generously support the Humanities EXCEL Program.

If you’re interested in learning more about Humanities EXCEL paid internships, please contact hum-experiential-learning@ucsc.edu.