Well, we’re finally here. After five semesters with Spectrum, with four of those being on the board, editing countless articles, and writing 11 of my own, I get to leave my fingerprints on one final issue before graduating from Sacred Heart.
1,342 days ago, I moved into Toussaint Hall to kick off my freshman year and Sacred Heart experience, and things looked a lot different back then. I entered college anxious and scared of being away from home for the first time and unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. Slowly but surely, the pieces began to fall into place. If you told me back then all of the things I’d experience in the next four years, I’d have a hard time believing you.
One-by-one, I’m going to take you through many of the experiences that pieced together my Sacred Heart puzzle and will leave me with lifelong memories.
Immediately after starting freshman year, I joined the Sports Media Club and quickly found a passion of mine on campus. I’ve always loved sports, but joining SMC allowed me to be exposed to what the School of Communication, Media & the Arts (SCMA) has to offer. It wasn’t until my sophomore year when I started to take media-related classes, but being in the podcast suite with SMC my freshman year gave me a brief taste of what those courses would look like. Believe me when I tell you, I didn’t know a whole lot about control rooms and the media back then, so the club was a good place to start. Over the years, I went from just being a member to being the Director of Productions to serving as President in my senior year. I’ve made great friends through the club over the years, including meeting one of my now closest friends, and have had a lot of laughs and good memories during podcasts and meetings.
Let’s fast forward to the spring semester of my junior year. While I’ve always gone to sporting events here at SHU, especially the hockey games at Martire Family Arena, I never imagined what went on behind the scenes, and that all changed when I took CM372: Live Event. I remember the first broadcast I ever worked, a men’s volleyball game on a Friday night in January. I was on handheld and didn’t have a clue what I was doing, so much so that one of my fellow crewmembers had to come down to show me how to hold the camera. Fast forward a year and a half, and I’ve been crewed in several different positions, ranging from producer to audio, and have worked games in many different sports, including this season’s AHA Playoffs and the sold-out men’s basketball game against Fairfield. I’ve met a great group of people that’s almost become a family given the amount of hours we’ve spent together. Thank you to Aaron Such for all of the opportunities and guidance he’s given me to help me grow in the sports broadcasting field.
My experiences with Spectrum pushed me to join the Pulse this year to see how journalism looks from a broadcast standpoint. Once I started making packages, I realized how much truly goes into broadcast journalism. Between framing interviews, ensuring proper lighting for the interviews, coming up with questions, getting B-roll, creating a script, and, finally, putting all of that together on Adobe PremierePro, it’s an extensive process and one that I’m glad to have gotten to experience. In my opinion, some of my best work came with the Pulse included my package on the Bridgeport Islanders 25th anniversary season and, especially, my recent story on the SHU women’s basketball team’s bounce back season. Editing these packages certainly took their fair share of time, but receiving positive feedback from Prof. Alicastro made it all worth it. Also, being able to anchor one of the shows was something that was on my bucket list since I joined the class, and I’m very grateful that I was able to get that experience.
Last but certainly not least, the Spectrum. I vividly remember my first Spectrum class, which occurred over Zoom due to snow, on January 16, 2024. I hopped on the Zoom call at 9:30 a.m. not really knowing what to expect. I knew that writing for Spectrum was a part of the class, but I didn’t know the extent of what I’d be writing or the format I’d be writing in. As I listened to Prof. Kabak explain the process during that first class, I was slightly concerned about how I’d fare, as I never had experience writing news articles. After writing my first article, which was on the change in the to-go system at 63s, I realized that this was something I really enjoyed doing. Conducting interviews with various sources across campus and turning those interviews into a ~600 word article quickly became a hobby of mine, and that led me to apply to be on the Spectrum board. Serving as co-news editor in the 2024-25 academic year allowed me to see Spectrum from the other side, as an editor working with students in the class – which was me just months prior. When applications for the next year’s board came out, I knew that I wanted to move up but didn’t know exactly what I was qualified for. After meeting with Prof. Kabak last March, it became clear to me that she believed I had what it takes to be editor-in-chief, and that brings us to this year. Serving as editor-in-chief was an incredible experience and wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the entire board, and I’m grateful for the contributions each and every one of you made to Spectrum this year. In particular, I’d like to thank Shannon and Moira for being so helpful and reliable this year and for working tirelessly every Monday to help put the paper together. I’d also like to thank my predecessor Maddie Beekman for being such a big help during my transition to editor-in-chief. And finally, I’d like to thank Prof. Kabak for the opportunity to be editor-in-chief and for all of her help over the years. Seeing the paper come together each week was a rewarding experience and one that I’m glad to have been a part of.
As I look forward with graduation quickly approaching, I can confidently say that I’m a much different person than the one who arrived at Sacred Heart almost four years ago, and that would never have been possible without all of the countless experiences I’ve had here. For that reason, I will always look back on my time at Sacred Heart very fondly.
