Dateline NBC correspondent Hoda Kotb spoke to mass communication students Oct. 6 about her experiences as a reporter and challenges she has faced getting a job and covering events. Kotb has been a Dateline NBC correspondent for the past six years and has reported from around the world in places like Thailand, Baghdad, Pakistan, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Before working for NBC, Kotb worked in New Orleans as an anchor and reporter at WWL-TV from 1992-1998.

Kotb said the hardest story she ever covered was Hurricane Katrina. She was working for NBC and was sent to Interstate 10 and the Causeway where refuges were stranded.

“I learned something powerful when I covered Katrina,” Kotb said. “I had never felt a story that was personal. I saw a principal of a school that I had once spoken at and a woman whose grandmother I remembered befriending at a grocery store. Suddenly, you’re not looking at strangers.” Kotb also spoke about her first job interview. She said the news manager watched her audition tape for about 30 seconds and stopped it. She did not get the job, but he told her about another station that might hire her. She said she drove for four hours to the next interview and did not get that job either.

“I was in the car with my horrible tape and my resume for 10 days driving like an idiot all over the place,” Kotb said.

After she had gotten rejected for the 27th time she decided to go home and start over. She got lost in Mississippi when her luck turned around.

“I saw something that said ‘Greeneville, Miss.: Our eye is on you. -CBS,’ so I thought let me go get that rejection,” Kotb said.

She went into the station and gave the news director her tape, and he watched the whole thing.

“He watched the whole terrible 20 minutes. He stopped it, and I will never forget what he said, ‘Hoda, I like what I see,'” she said.

Kotb said the best advice she was ever given was to question everything and never quit.