Members of NBS and WTOP with Laura Hand at CNYCentral
On Tuesday evening, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to travel to CNYCentral in Syracuse with Oswego’s Career Coach Jenny Roxas and a four other members from either the National Broadcasting Society or the campus TV station WTOP. While we were there, we were given an approximately two and a half hour long tour of the station by anchor Laura Hand from the studio while a broadcast was going on to behind the scenes.
It is one of my dreams to work at a TV station so visiting one while the news is going on was absolutely incredible. The most shocking part of the entire visit for me was how calm everything was. We walked into the studio when they were on a break and we were introduced to the anchors and then all of the sudden they were back and reading off of the teleprompters with no warning at all. The only people on the set when they went live were the anchors which is a big adjustment to what I am used to at WTOP where there is a person behind every position. The reason why there were no people manning the equipment was because everything was coded by computer which I thought was really cool technology. Another really cool part of the trip was meeting a few Oswego graduates at the station which made me feel confident that I have been getting a good education and with hard work I could end up in their place one day.
This trip really opened my eyes as to what a functioning news station looks like and truly helped me develop a stronger idea of what I want my life after Oswego to look like. My advice to you all is to take every opportunity that is thrown at you because college is a time of getting out of your comfort zone and finding out what you want to do with your life and taking trips like this are extremely beneficial!