Final Reflection

This internship has taught me so many things that I will take into future endeavors with me. Leaving Alice 97.3 is a sad thing for me, but I know I will be able to use the skills that I have learned at the station in new opportunities. Although I learned a lot, and had fun along the way, this internship, like all internships, had its ups and downs. There were things that I found difficult about coming to a radio station, and things that turned out to be much easier than I had thought.

Let's start with some of the things that weren’t as easy as they seemed. Obviously waking up at 3am for work is no small task. But this proved to be even more difficult than I thought. Being a college student means you’re constantly working on assignments for work, school, and extra curriculars. This meant that I never got to bed early the nights before my internship which ended up being very hard on my sleep schedule most weeks. It is something though, that you get used to over time. I had to learn how to better plan my schedule. Between my classes, stunt, and my internship it was necessary for me to work on my time management skills over the semester. This is something that I know I will need to continue working on as I go through college and when I graduate but I am grateful that the Alice internship has helped me start to develop these skills. 

Another thing that ended up being different than I had anticipated was the fast pace environment. I had never thought of radio as being something where you are constantly completing tasks, but I was evidently wrong. This is not something that I struggled with, having worked in other fast paced environments like a restaurant prepared me well for this. It was just something I did not know about radio. During the breaks of the show especially, you are always trying to keep the hosts informed on the latest news, while working on the podcast, and doing the contests, and anything else that is necessary during that time.

Working for the station was one of the best opportunities I have had. One thing that I thought was going to be difficult that ended up being something fun to do was finding the top news stories for the hosts to read on air. In the mornings at Alice everyone is trying to find stories that Sarah and Vinnie are going to read live on air that day. I thought this was going to be hard because I thought they would be very particular about what can be said on air. But really, they are open to any funny stories, breaking news, and top entertainment. It was fun to be able to pick out certain stories that I thought the hosts would like to read about, and the listeners may be interested in hearing that day. 

On the station I not only learned the mechanics of running a number one morning show, but also many more important life lessons. I learned time management and stress management from having so many things going on this semester. I also learned a lot about myself during this internship. I have my own YouTube channel and I have already been able to implement some of the editing skills I learned at the station, into my own videos. I have also learned about interacting with your audience, and how to remain opinionated on certain topics, which can be incredibly important to do on the radio. I have discovered now that radio and broadcasting is something that I could be interested in for my future. I also know now that I definitely want to be a part of the entertainment industry from here on out. I am so thankful to have had this experience and I can not wait to see how I can use these skills in my future endeavours.