The return of Transatlantic Storytelling is officially underway as 16 Ball State students have been selected to participate in the second iteration of the award-winning project with Cardiff Met University in Cardiff, Wales.
The highlight of the project will be a 12-day cultural immersion trip to Wales in late February and early March 2024. While on the ground, students will collaborate with their peers in the Cardiff Met Sport Broadcast course to produce feature stories, live sporting events, studio shows and podcasts.
Rachel Henderson (Junior)
I feel like having the experience of working on a live broadcast overseas will help me learn new ways of communication and how different sports are portrayed in different countries through media. I have also seen myself grow as a videographer and after seeing all the beautiful sights and locations we will be witnessing, I couldn’t help but let my creative brain run wild in what different shots and angles I could capture with my camera.
Overall, I think this trip will help me grow more creatively and also help with my communication skills which is very necessary when wanting to go into the field of sports media.
My love for sports media, specifically broadcasting, started six years ago.
There was a club at my school where you would get paired with a person in the community that had a job like what you wanted to go into.
At the time, I thought I was going to be a writer, but my small town didn’t have that as an option. Instead, they paired me with a videographer. I did not know what to expect until the first game I worked where I was put onto a camera that was positioned near the end zone.
A football player came crashing through my camera and I felt like I was in the game. From that moment on, I knew that was what I wanted to do. I quit softball, where I was on varsity and travel ball, to learn every aspect of broadcasting that I could.
I now go to Ball State, where I push myself every day to be the best director I can by learning everything on a broadcast on a higher level. A love that started out strong six years ago, is still going strong and I hope to continue to have this passion for the rest of my life.
The biggest goal is seeing how live broadcasting is done overseas and how it will help me become a better director. Being in the industry of live broadcasting, I have had plenty of experience with the American way of broadcasting. However, going overseas and witnessing others broadcast, I believe, will make me think outside the box on how I can run my shows.
I also believe it will make me a better communicator, which is the number one thing when it comes to being a director or a person in the media field in general. People in different countries have very different ways of living and experiencing that will give me more insight on how to treat people/better communicate with them.
Rachel Henderson