All the internships and real world experiences wouldn’t have been able to prepare me for one of the most difficult tasks that lay ahead. This is my last semester of college. I finally made it. I am a big, bad senior. It’s supposed to be one of the most fun, most rewarding and, above all, the easiest semesters. However, that has not been the case for me.

For three weeks I’ve been working myself to death.

On the first day back from a refreshing winter break, I eagerly volunteered to be the executive producer for the first broadcast on SMU TV, thinking it would be a cinch. (I mean who wouldn’t want to be in charge and be able to give orders.) Boy, was I ever wrong.

Since I’ve had two wonderful internships and currently write a weekly segment for WB 33, I figured infant SMU TV would be no problem.

For many of you that don’t know, the journalism department has just built a state-of-the-art television studio in the Umphrey Lee Center. The new facility features a fully functioning professional studio and control room. With Emmy-award winning contractors, consultants and professors, the facility has been expertly constructed to create the same environment one would expect to find at any major television studio. For any student who wants to major in broadcast journalism, this is the ultimate dream to be able to have access to this facility.

Because the studio just recently became operable, the students weren’t given enough technical training to allow a comfortable and smooth first show. It’s been a learning process not only for the students but for the professors as well.

One of the best things about SMU is the fact that we have access to some rather talented professors. I have at least three wonderful professors who know everything there is to know about what it takes to be a good journalist and at least one professor who knows all the technical elements. The problem is that when you see these stories on the news, they aren’t as easy to make as they seem.

Since I’m the executive producer, I felt sort of responsible for helping many students do their projects. Not only is it my responsibility to put together a story, I also have to write the entire script for the show, and choose stories that need to air. All the while, I am told 10 different ways by 10 different people how to do my job and still go to my other classes and a job.

Last Wednesday, we had our first run through. It was a complete nightmare. It was obvious that we still needed to work out all the bugs in the system.

The most important part of putting together a newscast is teamwork. If one person doesn’t do his job, it can make the entire process nearly impossible to complete.

I think everyone learned how important it is to meet and make deadlines.

At the last minute, one of the top stories didn’t get finished. It was terrible. I had one professor urging me to help fix it and another saying there’s no way it was going to run. I felt like I was being pulled in 20 different directions.

I’ve talked to my other classmates and a lot of us agree that saying, “the blind leading the blind,” could easily sum up this whole experience.

I know that this was the hardest show because it was the first, and no one had a clue of what they were doing.

I was amazed by the way people completely transformed and pulled together for the final product. I would never have believed that our technical director would have been able to put on such a professional show. All the people working the cameras did a great job.

I know that as the surrounding community views the show, it would be amazed to know that every aspect was completely run by students.

I believe that we are some of the luckiest students to be able to have the access to this great opportunity to get real world experience.

Despite getting off to a rocky start, I am very pleased with how everything turned out. Everyone did a great job and truly pulled together. Once the cameras started rolling, the crew calmed down and, all things considered, executed a very smooth show. All the hard work, sleepless nights and countless arguments paid off. Even though it was probably one of the hardest months of my life, I will always remember it as one of the most rewarding.