All Photos Used with Permission from Jess Rigdon

Meredith: “Nice sweats, I didn’t realize it was casual Tuesday.”

Laura: “That’s next week. Today’s actually douche bag Tuesday, but I’m assuming you already knew that.”

The Mysteries of Laura is a brand new television series on NBC about a single mom NYPD homicide detective who cracks case after case while raising wild twin boys and locking horns with her less than helpful police detective ex-husband.

More what’s more interesting is that Jess Rigdon, 2014 Alumnus of the Creative Producing program, is the Showrunner’s Assistant on the program. Jess is from a small town just south of St. Louis, MO called De Soto.

“It’s a railroad town with lots of goodhearted people and a lot of space to dream. I did a stint at Webster U in St. Louis for undergrad, where I spent more time checking out films from Blockbuster (which people used to do) than I did in journalism class. I worked as a journalist/ran a small town newspaper for a brief second and decided that unscripted stories were too hard on the heart and decided to focus on my passion of storytelling and people. That led me to the MFA Creative Producing program at Columbia in the land of Chicago, where I developed an intense love affair with deep dish pizza.”

Jess became part of the second class to go through the Creative Producing program and recently graduated after her semester in L.A. and the completion of her graduate thesis film, Daisy.

“I think my proudest moment at Columbia was any time something on set would go terribly wrong (because inevitably something always does) and I’d have to figure out a solution to fix it. A lot of the time it meant relying on other people for help, but sometimes it was a fix I did all on my own. Having the confidence to tell others, ‘Don’t worry, I got this’ is a real character building moment. Problem solving is a valuable skill to have.”

“The most important lesson I learned at Columbia was: flexibility. There are a lot of grey areas in life and Columbia helped me to understand that not everything is black and white. The path that works for one person, might not work for you. But if you’re focused, you show up and work really hard—you’ll be fine. Also, I had a phenomenal advisor who taught us some real-world paperwork and communication. He really believed I was capable of being a leader and encouraged self-confidence. It worked!”

Jess’ lessons in leadership and self-confidence have surely but put into motion with her recent promotion to Showrunner’s Assistant on NBC’s new crime sitcom. Starting off as the Writer’s PA, she had a great launching pad for herself to start working up the ladder into her new role.

“I work closely with the Showrunner and writers room. It’s magical. I am excited to come to work everyday and really invested in our show’s success. The best part of the job is working with the Showrunner/Writers and seeing them break story [as well as] watching the creative process of each episode evolve and hearing reflective notes from the studio/network. My role is unpredictable and changes from day to day, but I consistently take notes, manage the flow of our Showrunner’s day and communicate with our friends on set in New York. I also run the social media for the writer’s room and live-tweet every episode. It’s so fantastic to be able to interact with an audience who loves your show!”

Jess is now looking forward to continuing her time with the show as well as continuing to equip herself with material to develop for the future. Outside of her current successes, she is aiming to spend more time at the beach, enjoy her neighborhood of Echo Park, and searching for a cure to her deep dish pizza nostalgia.