David Estrada, a freshman radio/television/video major from Costa Rica, will never forget this year's Spring Break.
With the help of Susan Edens, director of broadcasting, and Eric Krauss, director of the International Studies Program, Estrada had the opportunity to spend his Spring Break gaining valuable experience working at UNIVISION Arkansas, the only local Spanish TV station in the state, located in Fayetteville, Ark.
David Estrada, a freshman RTV major from Costa Rica, had the opportunity to work with a Spanish TV station in Northwest Arkansas over Spring Break.
Estrada’s goal for the week was to learn more about the communication process in the United States while gaining hands-on multimedia journalism experience. UNIVISION Arkansas produces two TV shows: ¡Así Es! Arkansas, a show featuring community stories, and Razorbacks en Español, a sports show. Each show is produced and hosted by a single journalist.
Estrada helped UNIVISION producer Monica Chávez with the production of one of the segments of the sports show.
"This was a challenge for me, because I had to translate to Spanish and mix together three different press releases about the games of the Razorbacks’ baseball team," Estrada said. "I was in charge of the voice-over and the editing process of the segment, which aired last week."
Estrada said that Chávez stressed the importance of journalists being knowledgeable about many different topics.
"That is why I accepted the challenge to work with sports, a topic that I hadn’t developed before," Estrada said.
Estrada learned more about the rules of the local television business in the United States. He also had the opportunity to network with area business leaders while attending a chamber of commerce meeting with the UNIVISION staff as part as the preparation process for the Hispanic Heritage Festival.
"In just two days, I was able to explore new horizons of the communication world," Estrada said.
Now that he is back on campus, Estrada plans to use his new experience as he continues working with the university’s TV station, KUOZ-Channel 6, to produce the Spanish news program, Voz Latina.
Topics: Communication Studies