How much radio presenting experience you can have at university

Some years ago I presented Leeds Student Radio’s ABROADcast, an international student discussion show. The show was introduced in the academic year 2012/2013 (incidentally also my first year of university) by a Swiss postgraduate student. People liked the show, and when everyone of the show left university after their 1 year master’s degree, I was kept on as producer and lead presenter for 2013/2014.

I’m having difficulties now remembering when I next did the show, because I was “replaced” by a native English lead presenter in the second semester of 2014/2015. To be honest, this his me quite hard. I loved the show, and I remember that the then daytime editor begged me to lead the show at the start of the year (because I obliviously knew the show very well and what I was doing). Thing is, you see, the show was from, about and for international students (which I was), thus replacing the role with a native was exactly the opposite of what the ethos of the show was. To clear this up though, I’m friends with her, so I have no hard feelings towards her.

What sometimes bothers me even more is the fact that I had been there since the inception of the show, and when the native lead presenter took over, she called the show “her baby”. That’s not really appropriate, is it?

But fear not, this did not stop me from being part of the radio station again. How could it? Although if I look back, I later took a break in 2015/2016.

Good news though, I was back on the show (ABROADcast) for 2016/2017. We were primarily a team of two Italians and me (German, in case you were wondering). Once in a while, we had guests on the show, too=)

If I remember correctly, the show was taken off as a core show after that academic year and because I wanted to continue with radio, I produced a show called “The Enterprise show” in the first semester of 2017/2018 because Leeds, the city as well as the university, is a great place for entrepreneurship and I felt I needed to talk about that.

Not many students are aware of the opportunities and support the university offers to student entrepreneurs. This include the Enterprise Society (which I actually ran as the president in 2017/18), the business start-up service at the university’s career centre SPARK, as well as numerous co-working spaces in Leeds and other meetups. The meetup that I regularly went to was “Leeds Digital Drinks” which has now celebrated their third year anniversary (if I remember correctly, so much has been happening over the years).

For 2018/2019, one of my friends asked me to be a presenter on the show “The Uni Corner” (which I am grateful for) and I gladly accepted. It was great fun to talk about all things university and Leeds University Union related things. There’s much to talk about I realised over time, and that gave us some great content. Personally, I enjoyed talking about the cultural events and GIAG (Give it a go) events at the union the most.

Now I am back at (the same) university for my master’s degree, but 2019/2020 has been too busy for me to get involved with the radio again, although I managed to be a part of the student newspaper The Gryphon. That counts, doesn’t it?

I started writing for the paper in my first year and have been the science editor for the past two years. Thus, I have no regrets about not having been able to be part of the radio station again. Writing is a great skill to have (and to develop), don’t you agree?