By Karen Ramos

I believe it is every Goshen seniors’ dream to leave the town right after high school, and I was one of those students. I didn’t think Goshen had the opportunities that I was looking for because it was such a small town, I wanted to experience the cliche idea of being a college student in a far away city. I felt trapped in this town and the only place I ever felt comfortable in was room 1080, the GTV studio.

Since sophomore year, I participated in Goshen High School’s GTV program. I was the main editor,  a main anchor, occasionally played other roles, and I produced videos for the show. This was the class where my passion for video production began, and by my senior year I was awarded GTV MVP for all I contributed to the show and class.

After high school my plan was to move to a far city, like Chicago for college. I believed it was full of more opportunities that I knew would help me go far, but I didn’t even have a plan, and I always have a plan. It was so overwhelming because I didn’t want to fail, I wanted to go far. Then, I found myself being introduced to Kyle Hufford and Jake Smucker at FiveCore Media at Goshen College, a company I had never heard of in my life.

I didn’t know what to expect when I began working here at the beginning of the semester, I thought it would be just like working for GTV, but now that I have a week left at my internship and my senior year is almost over as well, I realized that this experience changed my life.

Spending two days a week on Goshen College’s campus and in the communication building, I became comfortable with the campus, the department, the people; and for the first time in 18 years I became comfortable with this town, making it harder to leave.

Goshen College sophomore Tim Litwiller and Goshen High School senior Karen Ramos film the proceedings at the 2016 River Bend Film Festival.

I cherished every day I got to work here, whether it was filming an interview, working after school hours, during school hours, or even during spring break. Everything I learned here I took back to GTV and applied it to my work and to the show. Working at the River Bend Film Festival with FiveCore was my favorite experience here. It made me realize that there is so much going on in Goshen that I didn’t want to miss out on more.

Every minute spent labeling videos for two straight hours, cleaning lenses or equipment, editing interviews and B-Roll, sitting in the same office for a full semester, learning new techniques and ideas was an unforgettable opportunity that will help me get to where I want to be. I’m comfortable with the campus, the department, the staff, the students, but most importantly this town and it’s because my internship teacher placed me on a campus, where I would find my new comfort zone.

Room 36 at Goshen College; I spent most of my time working here and and falling in love with a campus I never considered. It makes me happy knowing that there is a little part of me that I’ll be leaving behind, there is a little piece of me in some videos. I made a certain cut that made it to the final draft of a video, I fixed the audio level to a certain sound byte, I added a certain b-roll shot that helps tell the story and that makes me so happy. I’m excited to call Goshen College my home, and I thank FiveCore for the amazing experience.