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.