A Day in the Life of a Radio Station Intern

Wow, apru108! We're super impressed that you have this amazing internship as a high school student. We didn't even know what internships were til we were 19! —Sparkitors

I’ll proudly admit it: I’m a forensics/speech nerd. This past season was my third year in forensics, but only my first doing the event of Radio Speaking. Getting the hang of things in Radio took me a few weeks, but by the end of the season, I had been recommended for an internship at my town’s local radio station, and got the job! Here’s a glance at my typical day as an intern:

6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday: I get up, go to school, and do all that average, not-so-fun stuff. Blah blah blah.

3:30 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.: I arrive at the station, where the fun begins. I check in with the production manager, who gives me a page consisting of about eight brief news stories to pick from and condense into a 58-second broadcast. I head into the studio I’ve been given for the day and begin choosing my stories: city council meeting + student strike + car chase + a win for the Bulls = pure gold.

4:15 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.: After cutting stories, recording, re-recording, and mixing the final read with some funky background music, the news broadcast is ready to go for the 4:50 p.m. update, and it’s time to start recording the weather. I’m responsible for doing the forecast that plays periodically overnight, so I have to be careful of how I word things—“right now,” “tonight,” and “tomorrow” are strictly prohibited phrases, as I’ve learned the hard way!

4:45 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.: As soon as I have finished recording the weather, I take care of typical intern-ish duties, i.e. doing the station’s boring and/or dirty work. I have to log when certain commercials were aired that day, and then I take out the trash. As painfully uneventful as this stuff is, I don’t mind it at all because I know I’m gaining valuable, real-life experience in something that may be my future career.

6:45 p.m. to 9 p.m.: I take a quick dinner break after doing garbage duty and then come back to the station to engineer whatever sports game or local civil meeting is being aired that night. On Fridays, it’s usually a game. I consider engineering the games to be one of the best parts of my internship because it consists of roughly two hours of working with the sound board and equipment, while also sitting around and doing whatever. Engineering only requires me to turn off our sports anchor’s mic and turn on a commercial whenever the anchor calls for a break; I can spend the rest of the game doing homework or wasting time on Facebook, depending on my ambition for the day. I still need to be attentive though, because if I miss a call for a break, the station broadcasts dead air. When the postgame show is over, I return the satellite music feed to the air and go home.

The negative aspects of the internship (such as taking out the trash) are far outweighed by its positive aspects (such as hearing your own voice on the freaking radio, of course!). The opportunity to have some experience with pretty heavy responsibilities while also being able to get some homework done makes for what I feel to be an ideal job for a busy teenager like me. Never mind that the dismal state of the economy does not allow for me to get paid for my work—sometimes the value of simply acquiring a new skill and discovering a new passion is a far better reward than a paycheck.

What's your ideal internship?

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Heyo, Sparklers, this is important!: We've been publishing lots of A Day in the Life posts, which all started with synchrogirl117's post about a normal day in public school. We've published posts about religious schools, prep schools, boarding schools, international schools, and home schools, and we're trying not to repeat. Before writing a post about a day in your life, please check to make sure it hasn't been done before. If you've already seen your day (more or less) written about, our advice to write about something else—something that'll really stand out on the blog!