Has life changed a great deal in a year and a half.

Has life changed a great deal in a year and a half. I came to ICB in January of 2007 not sure of where I wanted to go. I held a degree in marketing and was doing well. But it just wasn't making me happy at all.
I was one of those people who heard the ad from Matt Abbatacola on the Score and thought how great would it be to talk about sports all day. It was the dream that we all had meeting those guys from the score.
At first, I was discouraged, but realized that radio has always been where my passion lied, and I could not live without at least trying. So I started as an intern with Mancow in Chicago.....That gave me a great idea as to how a talk show worked (especially in the entertainment industry). I spent about a month and a half there and learned a great deal from them. But I needed something different.
I started interning at Metro Networks/Shadow News and Traffic in June of 2007 doing whatever they asked of me there. After my three month internship was up in the news department, the Program Director (and ICB Grad) offered me a second internship to learn traffic. There was no promise of a job, but to stay in the minds of people there was important. After graduating from ICB in November, I continued my internship until a job opened there or somewhere. On December 17th, I found out from the higher up's that I was going to be hired on as a part time editor/on-air talent. I started with 15 fixed hours a week and have since moved up to between 25-30 hrs a week. I've also been a fill in on Sirius Satellite Radio for the Chicago and Houston Markets.
What's really exciting (and at the same time made me extremely nervous) is that I will be doing Traffic Reports for 560 AM WIND and WMBI from 9-11 on Thursday, June 18th. It will be the first time my name will be on the AM/FM dial where I am not an intern. Something else I will touch on is that although being finished with school, I acceptedd an internship with WGN's Newsroom. The experience there (working full time) was nothing short of amazing. You work hands on producing national sound bytes throughout the day as well as getting stories ready from reporters who are on the scene. The one newscast I will never forget was when two of my soundbytes I got from an Obama press conference as well as the Pope's mass in Washington, as well as sound I recorded from two separate reporters made up the first 4 stories of a morning newscast on 720.
So as you can see, the last six months have been nothing short of amazing. I definitely recommend listening to everything that they tell you at ICB. Getting into this industry is tough, but being in the industry is an absolute rush that I hope continues. Thank you for all of your help ICB! -- Daniel Frank