Senior Spotlight: Jake Serrano
Jake is a transfer student and senior Film and Television Major who has worked at 107.7 TheBronc for the past two years. He took some time to reflect on what he has learned from the experiences he’s had at the radio station before heading to LA for the spring semester!
Defining moment of how you got involved!
“I joined 107.7 The Bronc September 2022. That was the first time I could actually do anything, but I came in right away. I think I walked in the first day of school, and John was on the phone, and I was like I need to talk to you, and he was like give me a minute, and I just stood in the doorway until he gave me something to do, right away. But it’s all so different now, because the station is so packed with students. Weirdly enough a year ago, it was easy for me to walk right in and get opportunities. It’s really changed since then.”
“The station is growing—so many things have skyrocketed, and you just see the success of the station grow and you see the success of you, and now it’s a matter of how can I apply it all to the real world and how can I get somewhere in my career.”
Jake Serrano
What Did You Do At 107.7?
“I wanted to be involved as much as possible,’and John asked me what I liked and I said, ‘Oh I like sports.’ There was an open position on The Overtime on The Bronc Retro, and he gave it tome. I was writing sports reports. writing and producing commercials. I think by the end of my first week at Rider I was already heavily involved. I picked up everything pretty fast. I was producing stuff before this though. I was like I need to get in here, and then I just went from there.”
Favorite thing you did at The Bronc?
“My favorite thing at The Bronc was being theSports Director, shaping the team in my own way, training people, and giving them my two cents, which is interesting because I look around the station and I know there are 6–7 people I have trained and I was able to help them grow. I like to see that I had skills to teach to others; and had something to give back, and they were receptive to it, and they actually said, “I helped them.”There are some things I experienced here that I don’t think I will ever get to experience again.”
Did you ever think you‘d win a national award?
“I didn’t even know we could get awards. I didn’t know the Intercollegiate Broadcast System was a thing. To be honest, I wasn’t even thinking about my resume either. I was just like I’m coming in here to do work, it’s the same thing I have always done and what I like to do. Then a few weeks went by, John said to submit one of my sports reports for the IBS. I had only produced four reports by that time, which is weird because it shows you how small the station was, or it shows you that maybe I was good. Then John called me in December and told me I was nominated. When the awards came around, I won, we won ‘BestCollege Radio Station’ in the country. You can have goals and aspirations, but you can’t will things. I didn’t know that was gonna happen—doing football live broadcasts for Rancocas Valley and then becoming Sports Director. I never thought all this would have happened in two years at Rider.”