Goodbye Semester

by: Tiffany Smock


The semester is over as is my internship with the Liberal Arts Career Development office. I have really enjoyed my time here and there are lessons learned that I will always remember. I've learned so much during my internship and it's a bittersweet feeling to be leaving.

This was my first internship experience and I'm so happy that it was at the LACD. From project managing the Advance Yourself Graduate School fair to designing flyers I can't even begin to explain all of the skills that I learned during my internship! But I am going to try and list just a few things that I really took away from the experience.

First, I learned how teamwork can be a good thing. Now I know that many people have had bad experiences working in group projects, but at this internship I've seen how it can also be a good thing when everyone works together.

Second, I learned how to better manage my time. With a full class load, being involved in clubs, and my internship I knew that I needed to get on track with my schedule. I wrote everything down and while it was tricky at first, I did eventually get the hang of it and ended up with some great time management skills!

And lastly, I learned the importance of internships. I know that so many people tell students about it and yes we all know it's the truth, but after being a part of one I now realize just how important it is. I feel that I'm still learning all that I need to in order to function in the working world and this internship was a great starting point. I don't know what I would have done if I had blindly entered the workforce not knowing what to expect!

I want to thank the entire LACD team and interns for a wonderful internship experience! I had fun and learned a ton! I hope that Career Week is even better than last year's!!!

Ciao, readers!

By: Amanda Norell

Just as it is every year, the semester has flown by even quicker than the year before. It seems like just yesterday I was walking into my interview (sick as a dog, deaf in my left ear and voiceless—quite the disadvantage. I didn’t think I had a shot!). But now, 4 months later, an experience, changed, and successful (I would say) intern writes to you.

I received my offer from LACD in the spring and was beyond jazzed about it. I actually received it before I secured my summer internship, which made me even more jazzed. I will admit, though, that over the summer I began to have my worries, not necessarily about the internship, but about my semester in general and how I would balance my time. With 18 credit hours, a part-time job, being in a sorority and two other organizations (one where I hold a position) on top of the internship, I didn’t realize initially how much I was taking on. When the semester had finally started, I quickly became aware that juggling all of these activities might be too much for me to handle, and I needed to scale back. It was not an easy decision for me to make (someone who hates to admit ‘defeat’), but it was also one of the most mature decisions I had ever made and I grew a great deal from it.

I saw myself grow even more through my internship with LACD. I was being challenged in ways I had never been before and, while I admit that I was a bit intimidated at first, I began to love it. The first of my assignments as an intern: creating the LACD newsletter for both September and October. I had had some experience in this arena before; interviewing people, writing articles, page layout, etc., so I truly enjoyed working on the newsletters and found it to be a nice introductory task for me. But around mid September that I hit the ground running. Writing press releases for Advance Yourself (LACD’s graduate and professional school fair), project managing LACD’s speaker series, creating and implementing marketing plans, delegating tasks, and collaborating to the creation of LACD’s newest program, Peer Partners.

I know there are things in there that I am forgetting, but this experience has prepared me for the future by instilling and strengthening in me marketable skills for employers. I have started to find my voice in a team setting and now feel more comfortable as a leader. My organization and time management have improved and I have become much more comfortable professionally interacting with superiors as well as peers. I’m definitely a much more well-rounded person than I was at the start of the semester

So what’s next for me? I’ll be spending spring semester studying abroad in Scotland, and I couldn’t be more excited! I have one more year at Purdue starting next fall, and it’s crazy how fast time flies (sorry for the ridiculous cliché, but I can’t help that it’s true). After that who knows! It’s no secret I want to be a wedding planner, so I’ll keep working toward that and see what happens!

Lastly, I just want to thank the whole LACD team for helping me grow this semester, especially Sidonna and Lisa for giving me this opportunity. Good luck with career week! (Not so secretly bitter I won’t be here because it already sounds so awesome!) And to my other interns—I wish you all the best in all of your future endeavors!

Ciao, readers! 

The End of Semester Mayhem

by: Tiffany Smock


As the fall semester winds down, our stress level goes up. With finals, projects and papers there is no such thing as free time for a college student this time of the year. Many of us are ready to be done with classes and anxiously await the day of our last final to head home. However, from my personal experience sometimes my motivation decreases as the semester comes to a close. I get so burned out from my busy schedule that I'm ready for break to begin as well. This type of thinking can lead to problems, and as I experienced my freshman year, lower performance on final exams.

So how do you keep your motivation level high and your sanity during the stressful time that is finals? An article from cityofcollegedreams.org gives 10 easy tips for students to follow, but I'm only going to touch on 5.

1. Embrace the anxiety: It's important for you to acknowledge the fact that you are stressed, don't try to ignore it.

2. Sleep: Now I know being a college student this is a foreign word to us, but it is perhaps the most important tip for surviving finals week. Sleep not only keeps you focused, but it also helps with your health and decreases your stress level.

3. Take a Break: You cannot study for 6 hours straight and expect to retain everything. Studying nonstop does you more harm than good by increasing your stress level and overloading your brain. You are more likely to forget things you studied unless you take an occasional break. Do something fun like read a book, or surf the web, or call home. Make sure you do something that you like to enjoy to help you relax and take your mind off of things.

4. Grab a Healthy Snack: Healthy Body = Healthy Mind. If you neglect the health condition of your body, your mind will suffer too. While it's a given that we all will be drinking large amounts of coffee and energy drinks to keep ourselves going in the studying process, it's surprising how eating healthy foods can produce the same results. By choosing a healthier option, such as a piece of fruit or juice, you can give your body the fuel and nutrients it needs to stay healthy and keep you at your best performance.

5. Ignore the Celebrating Students: This is probably the hardest tip of all to follow. We've all had those friends who get finished with finals early and start celebrating and telling everyone how they get to go home. It's easy to get distracted and lose focus when friends are doing this. I know that it's hard, but try to ignore it and keep studying and don't worry, you'll get your time to celebrate too!

Good luck to everyone on their final exams and if you want to read the other 5 tips here is a link to the article.

http://www.cityofcollegedreams.org/blogs/staci-and-barbara/10-tips-maintain-your-sanity-during-finals

Last Blog of the Semester

       

 Ray Carter

       My time at Channel 5 is coming to an end, and many employees suggest that we shadow producers to get a feel for how a TV station does its work. I've assisted and worked with Producers all Fall, but I barely understood what they do. Bryan Spencer, KSDK's Creative Services Producer, suggested that I shadow him for a full shift. At the beginning, Bryan explained that all the producers have to know what's going on in the Run Down or Scripts for the day. It's important for them to attend the news meeting to know what's going on. News changes very rapidly in a larger market; what might be the top story this week isn't the next. Every station is different, but channel 5 tapes quiet a bit of news. Every Producer is assigned thirty minutes of broadcast time or a special series of reports/ commercials for daily broadcast.  Bryan explained that his job entailed making multiple "Topicals" or commercials for the evening news shows. 

      We sat down at one of the station's editing computers, and he showed me that format to use. He inserts graphics and a time line to ensure that everything will be ready before taping. We looked up multiple news websites to see what the most important stories of the day were. He showed me the Associated Press Computer Program; it helps station employees write scripts and put together a news show. He wrote directions for where the anchor sit, read, and act when the commercial tapes. We then went to a meeting after the 6:00 PM. news where the Main Anchor Mike Bush and News Director Mike Shipley suggested where our focus should be on the next 6:00 PM news program. Bryan then handed the script we worked on to Missy, the Head Producer. She made a few changes and then gave us permission to tape the first commercial. It was a neat experience to see how the control room comes together. A lot of buttons light up, and the audio engineer controlled the sound when taping. The Topical shoot only lasted a few minutes, with  Mike Bush giving us one take.


      Bryan and I worked on several more Topicals; he says that the station needs him to do four commercials teasing the news per night. If he doesn't make his deadline then black air shows on the screen, and the station loses a lot of money. He says that it can be a lot of pressure, but it can be really fun. Bryan showed me different editing tricks for putting together a resume package. Later at dinner, Mike Bush and a few other employees told me about their first experiences as  interns. It was very humorous, and they told me that it can be scary working in a professional setting when you're young.



        Overall, my experience has been a unique one. It seems that not every television or radio news internship will be the same. Some will want you to do more office work, while others want you to shadow a certain aspect of the job. In one of my interviews this spring the news producer wanted interns to do a lot of script or news writing. At Fast Track, we were required to do a lot of script writing also. At PBS St. Louis, I worked on a news website doing a lot of interviewing. My Sports bosses Andy Mohler and Rene Knott suggest that a college student should take an internship seriously. They give all the sports interns multiple duties to get a feel for how the workplace is on daily basis. One the newer reporters, Talia Kaplan, suggests that you make sure to come into an internship interview prepared and not to be nervous.  I've enjoyed my experience at Channel 5. It was hard at times, but I got used to the pace.

       I've hoped you enjoyed all my blogs! I'm looking forward to graduating with a Professional Writing Degree this May and moving back to Purdue in January.  I hope that I gave you all insight into some of my experiences this fall.