A time to learn even more

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to visit a place that I would have never imagined going to. I had the opportunity to go to WITF in Harrisburg. Many of you know that I have a huge interest in radio and broadcasting, and that's what I want to do with my life. So I just had to take up this opportunity to explore and learn. There was another girl from my school who went along, and the School-to-Career Coordinator drove us there.

To start off with, we met in the Guidance office to get ready to leave at around 8:30am Friday morning. We went to leave, and it was pouring outside. So we rushed to Ms. Dynan's car, and on our way we went. We headed towards I-81 north, however that was backed up because of a truck accident. I had actually heard about the accident at 6 that morning, and was surprised that there was still some back up from it. So we took some back roads, and got on 81 at an exit further north. So we were supposed to arrive at WITF at 9:00, but we didn't get there until 9:20. That was okay though, because the lady giving the tour was still talking to the group at that point.

I would like to pause here to say just how much WITF has been a part of my life. It's probably the first station I ever started watching on a regular basis. Since my family has never had cable (yes, we keep living, and we're fine!) I haven't been one to watch Nick Jr. or whatever other channels on a regular basis. Even now that I'm older, I watch some of PBS's programming when I can. I love watching all the cooking shows during the summer. They are just a wealth of information and education.

I know even in the winter of 2007, there was one weekend when both my dad and I were sick. We were literally sick the entire weekend. So on that saturday, all day we had the TV on, but most of the time it was on PBS. It's nice because most of their shows are family friendly. It doesn't mean that kids would be interested in it, but they could watch it if they wanted to. So we watched home improvement shows, and cooking shows, and traveling shows. They have a really great variety of shows, and anyone could find a show on their that they might like.

Anyways, back to my visit. There were all different kids from a variety of different schools. All of us had some interesting in going into the broadcasting industry. We got to see the control room, which you can actually see from the lobby, through a bunch of glass windows. We could see what was on TV right at that moment, both on the regular station and the HD station.(my family just recently got the box to get those HD channels, and we love the HD channel for PBS!) After that we entered into the rest of the building. We saw where they broadcast the Radio station. The radio station they have is a classical NPR(National Public Radio) station.

We see inside where they do the teleprompter for some of their live stuff, and got to learn about all the elements of a live broadcast that they do. We also got to see the set for a show called Smart Talk, as well as get an idea of what other kinds of sets they have in that room. After that we went into the board room, where five employees talked to us about careers in broadcasting, and how they got their start. actually, one of them worked for human resources. But they answered our questions about internships, and just general questions about broadcasting. I recognized the voices of at least two of the people talking to us, because of hearing them on the radio, or being the voice of various TV spots. They were very blunt about the fact that it's a hard industry to enter into.

Afterwards, some schools had to leave, but most of us stayed longer and tried out the Demonstration Station. They had a camera, and teleprompter, and it's a nifty room to practice your presentation skills in. So I ran the teleprompter, and two other girls gave a news story. it was fun getting to try it out.

All in all I'm really glad I got to go. Ms. Dynan told me that I'll have to come to her at the beginning of the year next year, to get the list of these kinds of field trips, so I can try to go on all the broadcasting ones. That will be very exciting, and I'm glad I discovered these kinds of things while I'm still a junior in high school, so i still have one more year left. Also, hopefully it won't be quite as painful to miss school next year. I think this week I was in school for a total of 3 days. For someone who hasn't missed a day all year, that's a lot.

Well, sorry again for my long post, but as you can tell, I had a great time. I was even able to inform Ms. Dynan of a shorter way to go home. I think I surprised myself that I even knew of that way.

Anyways, I hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend.