Armed with her press pass and reporter’s notebook, Cupertino High School alumna Andrea Chang has spent nearly two decades chasing Los Angeles’ most powerful stories.

As a journalist, Chang has captured snippets of life from charred streets in Pacific Palisades and red carpets in Beverly Hills. She’s spoken to celebrities and executives, profiled hundreds of the city’s restaurants and covered everything from breaking news to retail. Chang, a graduate of the Class of 2003, was introduced to journalism through The Prospector — an experience she considers fundamental to her later success.

At CHS, Chang served as The Prospector’s opinion editor before becoming editor-in-chief in her senior year. In 2003, she and her editorial board led the publication to a historic second-place finish in the National Student Press Association’s Best of Show competition.

“I remember when they announced our name [at the NSPA convention] in Portland, we lost our minds,” Chang said. “The staff was beyond excited. It was a huge accomplishment for us, and a testament to all the work that we put in that year.”

One of Chang’s most memorable stories for The Prospector was about Johnny Perez, an alumnus with a developmental disability who was instrumental in supporting the CHS football team and Learning Center. She remembers the article — which focused on Perez’s positive spirit and impact on the community — for its uplifting, feel-good storytelling.

“Especially these days, there’s so much in the news that’s awful. I have friends who are like, ‘I can’t even stand to read the news anymore,’ and I’m mindful of that as well,” Chang said. “So when I write something that’s just kind of feel-good fuzzy, I feel like I’m contributing something.”

Chang went on to attend Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where she covered both campus news and the city of Evanston for The Daily Northwestern.

At Medill, an investigative journalism class gave Chang the opportunity to practice truly impactful reporting. She and other students investigated the case of a man they believed had been wrongfully convicted — and published coverage that aided in his exoneration years later. “It made me realize that I could really pursue this as a career, and that it wasn’t just something that I loved doing in high school — it’s something I loved doing in college, and also then could see myself loving doing after college,” Chang said.

After graduating magna cum laude, Chang joined the Los Angeles Times as a summer intern. Her 10-week internship was extended by six months — and during that time, an entry-level reporter position opened. For Chang, it was the start of an 18-year career at the Times.

“When you start a new job straight out of college, you’re the baby in the newsroom,” Chang said. “I was really lucky to have a lot of editors and senior reporters take me under their wing — people that I’m still really close to today, even though many of them are now retired.”

Throughout her years at the Los Angeles Times, Chang covered business, retail, technology and wealth and edited the paper’s luxury real estate section, Hot Property. Her beats brought her face to face with figures like the Kardashian sisters, 50 Cent and Derek Fisher. When the Times announced the relaunch of its standalone Food section in 2019, Chang was named Deputy Food Editor, a position that broadened her journalism experience beyond traditional reporting.

“We were out late at night, eating out at new restaurants or trying cocktails at new bars. It felt kind of like a round-the-clock job suddenly, which was great. It was so much fun,” Chang said. “It made me think visually in a way that I hadn’t before, and of all the beats that I’ve covered, it was the one that made me feel the most tied to the city of L.A. because it was something that readers cared about a lot.”

Some of Chang’s most impactful stories came from reporting at the Times. In 2014, she covered a Los Angeles resident who used a 3D printer in his garage to produce prosthetics for amputees in Africa. During the pandemic, she wrote a lighthearted piece on wealthy buyers increasing the demand for yachts. In January 2025, Chang walked through the devastating aftermath of the Palisades Fire, interviewing homeowners whose neighborhoods had been destroyed. Within a day, she wrote a guide to filing an insurance claim after losing a property or business — a story that stands out for its practical importance.

“I just want readers to feel like they’ve gotten something out of a story that I’ve written — whether they’ve been entertained, whether they’ve learned something, whether it just made them feel a little bit more connected to the city in which they live,” Chang said.

In April 2025, Chang left the Los Angeles Times to work as a Global Business Editor at Bloomberg News.

“I started to feel like it was the right thing to do for me [and] my career growth, just to get myself out of the very safe bubble and plunge into something truly different,” Chang said. “And that’s what happened, and I don’t regret it at all. It’s been a really, really good change for me.”

Chang returned to CHS in March to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, an honor she earned through her work in journalism. Looking back, she credits her success in part to the worldview Cupertino gave her.

“Growing up in Cupertino […] led me to be raised with a really open mindset and to recognize that all voices matter, and that everybody has a story, and so many of those stories deserve to be told,” Chang said. “So for sure, I’m a product of Cupertino and of this school and of this place, and I think that I carry that with me even though I’m now an L.A. resident.”

For Chang, success is more than ambition — it represents balance, contentment and control. Her work has taught her to value time wealth, or the freedom to choose how to spend one’s time, and to separate personal and professional fulfillment.

“This is going to sound like impending old-person wisdom, but someone recently told me, ‘Work never loves you back.’ […],” Chang said. “And keeping that in mind as I’ve gone through my career has made it so that work disappointments don’t […] really push me too far off course, because I feel like I know what the bigger picture is in my life.”

Ultimately, Chang’s career has been shaped by the stories she’s shared and uncovered. She views journalism as a way station for information and experiences — and believes that its most crucial function is storytelling.

“This is why I love journalism, whether I’m writing for [the] high school newspaper or writing for Bloomberg News,” Chang said. “I feel like we wield a very powerful tool, in order to bring these amazing stories into people’s lives. I don’t take that for granted.”