When it comes to the world of radio, content creation, and entertainment it can be confusing how and where to take your first steps into this often fast pace world. And I won’t lie, there have been times when people are surprised that a program like ours exists because, YES, you can 100% go to school to learn the tools necessary to start your creative career in radio, content creation, and entertainment. In fact there are days where this program gets tough creatively or time management wise, but with instructors with industry experience and peers to help you along the way, sometimes you need that extra push to pursue your goals. But if I haven’t quite convinced you to join our program this instant, why not take this as a sign to come visit us at our campus and spend a day with us!
Photography by ErnestDuffoo – flickr
I had the pleasure of hosting our first Spend a Day – Radio Arts and Entertainment edition with our guest Emily. But before we get to my exclusive interview about her day with us, I’m going to give you a run down on our day so that you can be prepared for your own visit.
Meeting
Like many great beginnings we must have a fated, or rather, scheduled encounter! No better place than our Burnaby campus, home to our business media programs. More specifically our media building, SE10. Together with our Program Head, Brian Wiebe, we greeted Emily, gift her a goodie bag, and got to find out exactly what she was hoping to get out of the program.
We also got to say a quick “Hi” to our Associate Dean, Daniel Getz, and got to headed off on our merry way to explore our building.
SE10 – First Floor
Now before you think anyone can just wander around our building, you do require a student card with access to our building. So not only did Emily have me as her personal guide, I was her all access entry card to see what equipment that we’re hiding in our building. I took advantage of heading to our broadcast gear team, where we have access to industry level equipment. No need to buy expensive equipment and figure out how to work the dang thing when we have experts ready to give us a hand.
We also got a chance to chat with a couple of 1st years doing their final project for their intro to videography. They were excellent in explaining what tasks they needed to complete, giving Emily a taste of what is to come for her next year.
Of course this means we had to drop by and chat with the man in charge, Dan Motut, as he welcomed and explained how his classes worked and the exciting projects we got to work on in our first year. I’ll even show you what I worked on in my first student film:
We additionally took the time to check out the various recording studios and booths available to book, use, and practice our skills.
SE10 – 2nd Floor
Before entering our work room, I took the chance to show off our sports cast room where we report on our hourly sports focused news and give her a taste of what it was like to sit in one of our radio booths. Coincidently our afternoon radio host, Katrina Longpre, and music writer, Kealyn Claridge, were passing by. After some short introductions, it gave Katrina and Kealyn an opportunity to plan a special surprise for Emily when we checked out the host station shortly after. Katrina and Kealyn took the opportunity to share their experiences with the program and explain how our station ultimately worked and functioned when we’re behind the panel. The challenges, but mostly fun, hands on experiences working on the Evolution 107.9 station. But we couldn’t forget that special surprise, that’s right a short live interview together with Katrina! Up for the challenge, Emily took her first time on the radio like a champ. But this wasn’t the last time she got to be on mic, because after we took Emily to our ace audio engineer, JC Abiog, to record a commercial for us. With some coaching from JC, Emily performed spectacularly under pressure, and we made sure to grab her email so that she could get her own copy after the editing was completed.
We took the chance to also show her our mac labs, where many students spent countless hours on editing and working on their projects. All available to book and use when your laptop isn’t quite powerful enough to produce the projects you’ll be creating.
Sharing student work
It’s no secret that we aren’t shy about sharing the projects we’ve worked on, so I took the opportunity for my peers to show off some of their favorite works to Emily. But it would be silly to simply talk about showing which works. Here are the following videos that Markus Sull, Kealyn, and Cameron Nielsen decided to share, so be sure to check it out for yourselves!
Ending the tour
Before ending off the tour I decided to have a 1-on-1 chat with Emily to break down her thoughts and gain insight on why she wanted to joined our program. To gain more details make sure to check out our exclusive interview (here) once completed!
We also got to have a final chat with Brian and Todd Hancock, our program manager for our station Evolution 107.9 and instructor. We focused more on program planning and seeing what best fit Emily’s career asperations, and gave her a better understanding of our certificate program vs our diploma program.
And finally I gave her a brief tour of the key areas our program spends outside of the media building, the opportunities we have attending, what our student association provides for us, and most importantly the facilities she would have access to as a BCIT student. In all honesty I’m shocked that her head didn’t explode from all the information she got from one short tour.
To put it simply, there is so much in the Radio Arts and Entertainment program that we would LOVE to share to make sure that you’re confident joining us in the upcoming years. And while we cannot guarantee that your tour will look exactly like Emily’s, I can guarantee you will have an enthusiastic team ready to share their experience with our program. Choosing a post secondary program is never easy, but if we can give you a better insight on what you can achieve, I believe that is time well spent. Also did I mention we do this all for FREE?
So what are you waiting for? If you would like to schedule your own day with a BCIT student, especially one with us, check out the following link to get in contact! We can’t wait to give you your own personalized tour that you’ll never forget! Find us under the business and media tab!
SPEND A DAY
Don’t quite want to have that 1-on-1 with us? No problem! Bring the family to our open house on January 25th from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Not only do you get to check us out, but you can see our fellow media programs that BCIT offers, though I know you’re most exited to check us out!
OPEN HOUSE