There are many awesome opportunities for students to work on-campus jobs to get some experience during the school year. While most are fairly low key and relaxing, other jobs allow you to get your first real-world work experience in a field that could become your long-term career. Grove City’s Media Services Office hires student technicians to work campus events such as concerts, dances, and lectures – and even run chapel services.
As a technician and office coordinator for Media Services myself, I have had two great years of learning about media technology and working with students from many different backgrounds to create some amazing setups. With our growing team of 19 student technicians, we get plenty of opportunities to learn from one another and our different academic backgrounds.
I had the chance to interview senior Casey Latario who has been involved with media services for two years through a friends’ recommendation to apply. He enjoys working various events, but one of his favorites was setting up for the Keith and Kristin Getty Concert hosted this fall. Casey discussed, “As a biology major, I see that there are engineering techs who are super technically minded and not the best at communicating, but the other techs with different majors are better at communication and they complement each other.” Since Casey is also apart of other groups on campus, including the Adelphikos fraternity, he is able to use his talents and abilities in media production to help his fraternity out during open houses. Casey explained how he got to use the lighting truss for his fraternity open house. Because he knew how to use what they needed, it was convenient. He went on to say, “It was nice to be able to use the equipment for our group’s own events.”
While there are so many different skill sets among technicians, there is a great appeal to mechanical and electrical engineers for the hands-on experience related to their field. Senior Erik Azevedo is a mechanical engineering major who became interested in Media Services after attending a dance freshman year. “I’ve always been interested at a young age in media,” says Erik, “I also did sound for my church and enjoy making electronic music.” As a part of our learning process for Media Services, there are senior positions where students can specialize in a particular skill set like video, audio, lighting, and equipment. As the senior lighting technician, Erik prefers working larger dances or coffee concerts on campus with the freedom to run the lighting board. He said, “You get hands on experience and every event is different. You have to use skills that you learn, but there is an element of creativity to it.”
One of the best things both Casey and Erik agreed upon is the benefit of the diverse team where everyone can use their skills to put together a great show. The photos displayed throughout this post show different activities the Media Services team does on a monthly to weekly basis, including the Homecoming dance and live mixing for coffee concerts. The great thing about a campus job such as this is the flexibility in scheduling, as well as hands-on experience that is guaranteed in learning about campus events.
