The End of the Semester

As I mentioned earlier, this semester has really flown by. However, I still have so much work to finish up before I can finally be done with my junior year of college. This has definitely been the toughest and busiest semester yet for me with 19 credits and capstone class. I have about 4 more big projects that need to be finished, and then I can start preparing for my summer internship.

The first project, that will probably take the most time, is my documentary for my mass communication class. We were put into groups of 5 and assigned to create a 5-minute documentary about a person who has made a difference. My group has been working on this since February and all that's left is some editing, which I enjoy doing anyway. Our documentary is about a woman who runs a food pantry in New Castle. Once it's finished, I think it'll turn out great!

The second project I'm working on is my literature review for my capstone class. The review is to focus on research for our senior projects, and since I have finally determined my project I have been able to work on my research review the last few weeks. My research involves Public Service Announcements and regular television commercials, and what the differences are when producing the two different types of spots. For my overall senior project, I'll be creating these two different types of commercials for two different clients.

The third project that is only a few days away is a presentation on water quality in my environmental science class. This class is definitely not my forte, but I've been doing pretty well so far, and I'm hoping in the next few weeks with all the labs, presentations, and tests that I'll be able to keep up with this class.

Finally other projects that I have to finish up involve commercials for my commercial production class, labs and a final in my environmental science class, and a final in my public relations research class. All in all, this semester has been extremely busy with all the classes I am taking, and I will feel very accomplished once I do finish up all my projects, tests, and presentations. Once I do complete this semester I'll then be able to focus on my internship at WKBN, which I am very excited about, but haven't had much time to think about!

Looking Back...But Moving Forward

Wow this semester has gone quick. Not just this semester but, the whole year has just flown by! Although I'm very excited that I'm almost finished with yet another year of hard work, I'm also a little sad. I'm starting to realize just how close I am to graduating and being out there in the "real world." I like to look back on everything that I've done so far in college and I feel as though I've accomplished a lot. College has really helped me grow not only as a broadcasting student, but also as a person. When I first came to college I already knew that I wanted to major in broadcasting, and unlike most college students I never ended up switching my major.

I realized that I wanted to major in broadcasting after taking a media class back in high school my senior year. It was a fairly new program at my school and we didn't have much equipment. We reported the morning announcements from a small storage room and created numerous video projects. My teacher allowed us to be very creative and was always supportive of what we wanted to do. At the end of the year we each had to complete a final video project of whatever we wanted to do, and I decided to create a senior video for my graduating class. It was a big project and I spent many hours searching through old yearbook pictures, shooting video, and editing it all together. Although I probably spent 2 or 3 hours working on that video each day I loved every second of it. That's when I realized that this is something I could do for an occupation.

My media class in high school wasn't the only event that prompted my decision to major in broadcasting...it goes even further back. When I was about 10 years old, my cousins and I use to create our own videos. We live next door to each other so we were constantly together during the summer. We did everything from commercials, to game shows, to talk shows, to even news shows. I remember one time I reported a fake news story about a milk spill down by the cheese plant, and I even did an interview with my dad, who was the manager at the time. I look back at everything now and laugh, but I feel like I've always had a passion for broadcasting.

Now that my junior year of college is quickly coming to an end, I still have a lot to look forward to in the next year. This summer I will be getting my first real broadcasting experience as an intern for WKBN in Youngstown. I'm hoping this internship will really point me in the right direction of where I want my future to go and what type of job I'd like to have. Also, next semester I will begin working on my senior Capstone project, which is a little scary, yet exciting! I'm glad that I'm getting the opportunity to combine both broadcasting and public relations into my senior project. Finally, at this time next year I'll be job searching, which seems so unreal to me. Although, the years have gone by quick, I have gained a lot of useful and important information along the way.

Time is Running Out...

A few weeks ago I blogged about the importance of teamwork, and this week I got a much better understanding of its powerful meaning.

It was 2:30 in the afternoon, 5 hours till showtime, and Nicky and I were working on scripts for The County Line. We didn't have a complete rundown yet, but we were able to work on intros and readers while we waited for a finished schedule of the show. However, as we were typing up our scripts we weren't sure of what all the package intros were, what readers we needed to use, and what segments of the show were changed or cut. After we got a rundown, we tried filling in the holes of what we didn't have and made a few phone calls to get anchor intros for packages. We did as much as we could, but we had to leave for Capstone class at 3:40.

I wasn't too worried about our scripts at the time, I just figured it would all come together like it usually does. After Weaver let us leave Capstone class early, Nicky and I headed back up to the newsroom to hurry up and finish our scripts. It was about 4:30, 3 hours till showtime, and we were still unsure of a few packages. We were able to finish up almost all of the script at 5:15 and decided to break and get ready for the show, and then meet back at 6:15 to finish a few details, and print out our scripts.

I still wasn't too worried about our scripts and I felt pretty confident in the rundown. After getting ready, I met Nicky in the newsroom to print out our scripts, but that's when things really went downhill. It seems like everytime another anchor and I are printing out our scripts, the printer has to give us problems. I still have no idea what was going on with the printer last night. All I know is that it was 6:30, an hour till showtime, and we had no scripts.

The next 45 minutes were a hectic mess as we scrambled to get the printer working and using what we had to try and put a script together. I was frustrated, not with anyone in the room, but just with the printer. There were scripts laying around everywhere. Luckily, we somehow managed to get all the scripts for the telemprompter and were able to fit a run-through in. However, the show didn't go quite as well as it should have. I felt like I was under a lot of pressure and I thought at any minute something else could go wrong.

After this experience, not only do I understand the importance of teamwork, but I also understand the most important element of teamwork - communication. If your team doesn't communicate with you, things are bound to go wrong. I don't feel that anyone in particular was to blame for the way the show went, I just feel like the team as a whole wasn't communicating enough. All I can say is we learn from our mistakes, and since I'm anchoring next week, I'm hoping the show runs much smoother. And as for the printer, well, I'm still mad at it.

Getting Your Big Break

Earlier this week a Westminster alum, Eric Burns, came to speak at the college. Burns has had quite a career and has worked with some well-known television networks including PBS, E! Entertainment, and the Fox News Channel. He started off by talking about his experiences here at Westminster, and then summed up his entire career in about 45 minutes. It was great to hear from a professional and how he got started working in the business, however he made it seem so simple.

To my surprise, Burns wasn't even a broadcast major, he was an English major! However, in order to be a profound journalist or reporter, you do need to have good writing/speaking skills and I guess that's what helped him get his foot in the door. But, before he got into the broadcast business he tried to make it into show business by performing stand-up comedy acts act comedy clubs. So how did he make it into the broadcast world? Well, it sounds a lot easier that it seems. He made a tape, mailed it into a big station in New York and was hired. Even Burns mentioned how lucky he was to receive such a great job right away.

So after getting his big break at a station in New York City, Burns continued to jump from different networks and finally ended up at Fox News Channel where he stayed for many years. Burns said that his biggest issue with moving from job to job was trying to find a job where he could be in one place to be with his family.

So going back to how Burns got his big break in the broadcast world, I think today, this seems very unrealistic. A lot of the speakers that have come in to talk to my classes throughout my years at Westminster have talked about how you have to "get your foot in the door" and how you're going to be rejected many times before you find a job. Then when you do find a job you're going to start out at the bottom and have to work your way to the top. Also, almost every speaker mentioned something in regards to the low pay and how you shouldn't expect to make a lot of money.

I feel like today, the broadcasting business is very competitive, not just with different stations, but also with the employees. For example, if an anchor is making too much money because they have been at a station for so long, they have the possibility of being fired so a new and younger person can come in and be paid for less money. Maybe this wasn't the case when Burns was starting to make his way into the business, and maybe that's why it was so easy for him to get a good job. I feel that over the years the business has become more and more competitive, and more and more people are striving to be the best of the best. Even here at Westminster, I can feel the competitiveness among the broadcast majors.

I know that when I graduate and begin job searching, it's probably not going to be as easy for me as it was for Burns, but I realize that. Right now my expectations are that I'm going to have to send out lots and lots of resumes, and once I do find a job, I'll probably be constantly working my way up. I'm OK with that though, because as long as I'm doing what I love it doesn't matter.