Because what they do is they take somebody who wants to study something in a particular career and match them up with someone who can kind of serve as a mentor in that career field and that’s the person from whom you get your training. So after talking to Jim about this for  a while I finally decided to take the plunge and go for it and he asked me the radio station that I would most like to work at and it is one called coast 101.3 here in St Louis which is an adult contemporary station. I put that job as my first choice and the next day I got a call back from Jim saying I have an interview with you to talk to the program director of Coast 101.3 a Dave Christopher. So soon there after I went to Dave Christopher’s office for my interview and I realized at that point that Career Connection did just great for me. I got my foot in the door when otherwise it wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere the office. And as a matter of fact when I was sitting down and talking with Dave Christopher I noticed that he had this big moving box next to his desk on the floor with about a 100 manila envelopes in there all of which contained tapes f people reading or tapes f their voices along with resumes. Some of these envelopes were neon colors so they would stand up, some of them had bold bright prints so they would stand up and because of Career Connection what I was able to do is talk to the program director of the station despite the fact that he had about a 100 big manila envelopes with people who had also been seeking to have a career in broadcasting with Coast 101.3. Anyway we talked for a while the program director and I, he was convinced that I was really interested in broadcasting, thought that I would be a good person to train and so Dave Christopher trained me for about 4 months in broadcasting, all thanks to Career Connection. After the 4 months working hard with him and meeting with him weekly and doing a lot of work at home after the training was all done Dave took me back to his office and said I think you would be great, you are hired. And the next week I was on the air.   

                                               Sam - Radio Connection Student   PLAY VIDEO

My name is Stephanie Swaazo. I am a Career Connection student, actually I'm a graduate. I graduated about last May. I was with Chuck Dogg for about 4 months. We did a whole summer program. I traveled everywhere with him. It was actually fun. I found about Career Connections, I was searching online actually, I was hungry to start my education and I didn’t know how. So I typed in broadcasting in Google and I stumbled across Career Connections. So I gave you guys a call and you explained to me, I think it was you that explained to me the program a little bit more. So I had some money saved up. So I decided to take the program and when I started it wasn’t easy but Chuck definitely taught me a lot and after that I had a lot of fun doing it. I did a prom takeover with Chuck. We went to actually about like 5 different schools. We met a lot of little kids high school graduates, that were about to graduate for the prom. It was fun actually because since there was Power 105.1 there were very, very excited to be a part of it like on the radio and stuff like that. So that was fun. A little kid I remember was asking me for my autograph. So that was fun. I learnt a lot with them and Chuck actually let me be on the mike a lot. So that helped me open up a little bit more because when I first started the program I wasn’t as outgoing but then I realized that to be in this program you have to be really outgoing. 
                      Stephanie Swaazo - Radio Connection Student    PLAY VIDEO