When Reed Alexander, who played Nevel Papperman on iCarly, told his parents that he wanted to get into acting, they told him, “That’s not happening.”

But, at age 11, Alexander started acting on the TV show Will & Grace on NBC. Then he landed the role of Nevel on iCarly: a strangely intelligent boy who constantly feuds with Carly and her friends. “Even though I wasn’t a series regular, I really felt like I had a chance to develop the character on that show,” Alexander said in a Hi’s Eye FaceTime interview.

Alexander made his iCarly debut on the episode “iNevel” in 2007. After being on the show for about seven years, he studied journalism at NYU. “I thought, ‘If I major in a career that doesn’t work, I can always switch to theater or dramatic arts,’ but I fell in love with [journalism],” Alexander said. “It was absolutely the right decision for me.”

Towards the end of his studies at NYU, Alexander became a breaking news reporter for CNN in Hong Kong and then moved back to New York City, where he was one of the youngest to work on the staff of the Wall Street Journal’s digital network, Money-ish.

As of now, Alexander is working on an investigative project with teachers who were survivors of the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Alexander noted that this project is unique since he is honing in on how the teachers at Stoneman Douglas provide support to students experiencing PTSD.

As Alexander is getting closer to graduation at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he said, “I would very much like to go and write for a publication like Time magazine. The New York Times would be a dream.”

Alexander doesn’t take his journalistic journey and success for granted. “The hardest part has been being taken seriously in the beginning. I think a lot of people thought, ‘He was Nevel on iCarly, why would we ever get our news from him?’” Alexander said. “So I really had to fight to show people that I’m really serious about this.”

From acting in a hit Nickelodeon show, to interviewing Olympians, reporting for CNN and more, Reed Alexander can say that his transition from a career in acting to journalism was the right decision.