In all honestly, Room With A View has been one of the most rewarding things I have had the opportunity to do. Not just as the radio show, but as the studio overall. It has been filled with challenges, learning experiences and extremely fun moments. I had previously minimal experience with live to air radio shows before commencing the studio, other than some of my own online works that are in a lot of ways very different to the Room With A View format. The differences and new experiences gave me a chance to hone my strengths as well as get out of my comfort zones to try news things and find what I am good at and what I also need to work on. But overall I have not been demotivated to continue to improve and work on my radio and live to air skills.

Some of the biggest challenges of the studio were the obvious things, like going live to air for RRR and producing, hosting and planning a professional show. While there was also other things from working with new people and creating a cohesive team that could work and grow together. When we were told how soon we would be going live to air on RRR, I sort of laughed to myself, as I didn’t think it was enough time to be ready and properly prepare. That was in fact the biggest challenge and test, to do something we have never done before and to a professional standard. It tested my ability to work in a team, delegate responsibility, trust one another and to be ready for the actual air date. The demo gave us a chance to see how we would go, but nothing could really prepare us for going live to air. I feel as though the preparation for the first show were really to have the content ready, but not necessarily ourselves ready. It felt to me when on air that it was about testing an existing ability of talking and presenting, allowing the content to speak for itself and kind of letting go a little bit. Overall I felt it was a success, and was surprised at how my concern of everyones ability to do a live show in so short a time was so misplaced. It was a credit to the group I was in, Phong, Maria and Susita, who made the whole experience so much easier than it could have been.

My group in the studio worked tremendously hard, working tirelessly to put entertaining and informative shows together for Room With A View. I felt as though we all played and got to know each others strengths and weaknesses, to at first use those strengths and then build each other up and improve in ways we were not a strong in to begin. I first got to host our Room With A View show, something I wanted to do primarily when starting work in the studio. I wanted the opportunity to improve my confidence and experience in hosting duties and talking ability, that sometimes less is more. I am someone who likes to be in control, and relies a lot on myself in everything I do. While alts in my other hosting experiences, such as my own podcast, the show isn’t about me nor can I be in control of everything with the team. I learnt to let go a lot, first in speaking and trusting in others, being able to find a balance in what I say in regards to content for the Room With A View show, which also can translate over to my other work I do with radio. A similar situation occurred in our second show, with being a producer I got to be in control of several things. But when it came down to the show all I could do was sit and watch, giving me a lot more nerves than when I was hosting. However I got to not only let go, but see and appreciate other strengths and accomplishments other than my own. Which was something extremely rewarding I can take away from the studio and onto whatever future work I will do.

Overall, Room With A View came with its trials and challenges, making me improve in way I didn’t fully anticipate and testing me in other ways also. To learn new things, in an industry I really know little about, making features and hosting live to air shows, working so intimately all semester with the same team, as if we were all co-workers creating the content for RRR. It made me see the many ways in which I need to improve and made me more comfortable with my strengths. I look forward to the future work in radio I do, and honing my newly found skills in all aspects of work I will inevitably do.