I’m just a few weeks away from the end of my 90-day internship with The Daily Buzz.

I cannot believe how quickly the last ten weeks have gone, and how sad I am to be in the final stretch of what has been a whirlwind of learning, growth, and professional development.

While I attribute much of my knowledge of the craft of writing to my education at Full Sail University, I’ll admit that my practical knowledge – the actual ability to apply my skill and adapt – has come in the hands-on education I’ve had in the studio the last two months.

I’ve learned to run teleprompter, write copy, research stories, discern fact from rumor, pitch concepts, and write scripts – hundreds and hundreds of scripts – in a record period of time.

What took me years to understand as a student – the theories and concepts –  I mastered through just a few hours of application.

I’ve learned to have a thick skin (criticism is part of daily life in live TV), to roll with the punches (imagine every source of technology going down during a live taping – except the cameras, of cours!e), and to think quickly on my feet.

My proudest moment so far:

A few weeks ago, I came into the studio to find everyone in a state of resigned disappointment: our internet was down and, with all of our scripts/tech on a cloud server, we were not going to be able to do the show live. Our EP had already accepted the fact that we’d have to use our Evergreen – an emergency, pre-recorded back-up show – and that the day was basically a wash.

For some reason, I wasn’t OK with that. I wasn’t prepared to have all of our hard work – we had JUST made that back-up show two weeks earlier – go down the drain because of a faulty internet connection.

And then an epiphany occurred: we could use our cell phones as hot spots.

A few minutes later: my iPhone was providing internet to three MacBook Pros and we were FEVERISHLY writing. Scripts were finished seconds before it was time to shoot, and my personal laptop became the teleprompter for the three hosts – providing live, real-time script feed on my hotspot network.

Hey, ma, my laptop made a cameo on live TV!

Fresh out of college, I would have NEVER thought of a scenario like this – nor of a solution to save the show. A few weeks of this crazy, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants internship, and I’d learned to be quick on my feet, resourceful, and even more tenacious than I thought possible.

As exhausting as the last few weeks have been (I’m awake at 2am, work the internship from 3:30-8:30am, then my full time job), I wouldn’t give them up for the world. I look forward to catching up on sleep, but there will be a huge absence in my heart without the internship every morning.

I guess this just means I need to pursue a career in live television…

Optimistic for some exciting career turns in the future,

~ Victoria Elizabeth