Szadkowski, alumna and 'Gossip Girl's' Dorota, inspires BC seniors

Searching for a job is like surviving a rough break-up. At least it is according to “Gossip Girl”’s Dorota—a.k.a. Zuzanna Szadkowski, BC ’01—who delivered an inspirational keynote address to her Barnard sisters at Sunday’s Senior Experience Crossroads Conference, encouraging and comforting her younger peers at this time of transition.

Similar to a break-up, as Szadkowski explained, losing a job can feel like there will never be another. But, when the right one comes along, all other prospects fade away, she said.
Szadkowski still expresses surprise at the fact that her regular gig on CW’s hit television show “Gossip Girl”—the guilty pleasure of many a Columbia student—proved to be the job that made everything else disappear.

“I didn’t know that bringing a tray of yogurt parfaits to ‘Mees Blair’ and the mean girls in the second episode of an obscure new CW show would be my in to building a career,” Szadkowski said. “I didn’t even know that Dorota would ever have lines.”

Szadkowski mainly credits the show’s writers for the unexpected development of the character. Yet, she also acknowledged, “I think being engaged in the role from the beginning, even when it was very small, you know, I tried to do my part to encourage the growth of the character.”

Szadkowski has always felt honored to bring Dorota to life. “To the audience at home it appears that there is a Polish maid in the Waldorf house who sort of just rolls her eyes in the background,” Szadkowski said. “But for me, there was a whole world of acting that happens … all of that Chekhov and Shakespeare, all of my experience on stage, all of my training at Barnard and Harvard—where I received my MFA—just coursed through me and I would do what I loved to do in those moments.”

Now, Dorota not only has lines, but she is known as one of the show’s comedic leads. Despite this success, Szadkowski still believes to be “actively chasing a thriving career.”

Szadkowski explained to her student audience that her Barnard education had left her well equipped for the chase—and while many Barnard students do not pursue careers in the performing arts, there are common advantages to any Barnard education. “We all carry a professionalism, poise, and social skill instilled here at Barnard,” Szadkowski said. “The ability to make a great student of yourself here makes you so much stronger than everyone you run into out there.”

“The passion and curiosity about our world that our professors instill here makes us great thinkers, and great thinkers are in high demand across the professional world,” Szadkowski said.
Yet, Szadkowski also warned that, no matter how prepared any woman is for a career in any industry, she will inevitably encounter rejection. But in these times, Szadkowski advised her sisters—as she would the young “Mees Blair”—that there is no use in forecasting one’s future.

In fact, Szadkowski said, “It turns out that dreams are living things that change and mature over the course of your life.”

As a steadily working television actor, Szadkowski’s future holds mystery. She loves the work she does, but she’d like to breach the final frontier into film or continue with her true love, stage acting. Szadkowski’s example demonstrates that the future is malleable and hopeful for talented and educated women.

After all, Szadkowski said, “When you’re this good, you’ll eventually find your way.”