The beginning of my second semester at the University of Sydney means only one thing. It’s time for Uni Radio.
The Sydney University Radio Group (SURG) is a small but enthusiastic group of people who like the sound of their own voice. A friend and I decided we could not pass up the opportunity to communicate our comediocrity to anyone who will listen, so the two of us joined up during O-week for the small fee of three dollars.
SURG broadcasts on 90.9 FM. After a very brief demonstration of the simple equipment, the executive committee pretty much lets you say what you like. Other kinds of shows include chart countdowns, breakfast shows, heavy metal broadcasts and the odd variety hour.
My friend (whose nickname is Beefy) and I have a show called DoubleJ. It’s an hour of music, giggling like schoolgirls at our own jokes and fake call-ins and interviews which are really just us, putting on voices. It’s a huge amount of fun, even though at the time we’re on it’s unlikely anyone but our parents are listening. We’re only on for three weeks per semester because we share the station licence with a few other community broadcasters, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because it means you just get a taste for radio but only have to return for second semester if you enjoyed yourself. Beefy and I cannot wait for our show this week, but we noticed on Monday that the equipment had been moved to a mysterious location. So committed are we to our show that we vowed to carry on with it even if the equipment wasn’t there. The show must go on, EVEN IF our parents can’t listen.
We do hope that someone sets up the equipment, because there is a legitimate reason behind our show as well. Both of us hope to have a career somewhere in media, and the University of Sydney Union provides free recordings of your radio shows. These recordings are very useful as evidence for some kind of previous experience in media, and to get this experience whilst at uni makes you a more attractive potential employee.
Enough dreaming for now though. The truth is it’s time to go back to uni, and this means buying books, organising timetables, fixing your work hours or finding a new job.
One tip for buying books is to buy them second hand and buy them early on (i.e. before semester starts) because otherwise you’ll be waiting in a line longer than Kim Beazley’s shopping list. The other good idea is to order your “readers”, or the book with all your supplementary reading materials in it, over the internet with a credit card, so that you can skip the line to collect those and just walk in, present your name and pick them up.
If you get your first timetable and it’s not ideal for working, or sleeping in, or leaving uni quickly then you can go to the student centre in the Madsen building, near the Darlington side of campus but still on the Camperdown side. Here you can sit down with a specialist who can help you change your timetable to one which may suit you more, provided it suits the times that the various lectures and tutorials for a particular subject are on as well.
If you’re worried about finding a job, stay tuned, as I am right now in the process of finding one.