Someone to Admire...

I've thought long and hard about who I look up to from the previous graduating classes of Westminster. I still keep in contact with a number of the broadcasting alumni as well as others, but one person stuck out in my mind, as a mentor and someone I admired and still admire.

During my first day of Fresh Start at Westminster College, I met Liz Farry. She was one of my Fresh Start leaders. Liz made me feel welcome and comfortable here at school right away; plus when she found out I was a first year broadcasting major, she offered to help me with anything.

I remember the first time I contacted Liz...about how to use something in the audio lab. I was having some trouble, and she said it would be fine to meet me and go over some audio basics. In addition, Liz was the person I interviewed for one of my audio projects.

A couple months into the semester, I was nervous about doing my first radio shift, but Liz came to the rescue; she offered to let me come and watch her during one of her radio shifts, which I did. Not surprisingly, I looked to Liz's work as an example, something to strive for later down the line.

This was especially true when I started working for the TV station. Although Liz graduated a couple years before me, I still looked to her packages and stand ups as a basis. I wanted to be as comfortable on camera as she was, so I kept trying and trying. And another thing about Liz was that she was constantly involved and busy with broadcasting...take a look at her senior year, and that's what I'm living right now.

Not only did Liz work hard at Westminster, she also interned with NBC Universal in New York for a couple summers, which I thought was really exciting. This helped propel me to search diligently to find an internship of my own at a TV station.

Perhaps, one of the main reasons I especially admire Liz is because she wasn't afraid to change her career goals once she got out into the "real world." Although she was "Miss TV" in college, she now works as the communications specialist for the Girl Scouts in the Chesapeake Bay area. Right now, I'm trying to decide what I would like to do as a career, and I could see myself doing something a little bit different than the broadcasting "norm." So, thanks Liz!