Learning the Ins and Outs of Audio Production

By Dean’s Intern Kayla Lattimore at NPR

My time at the NPR Education Desk has been one of the most fulfilling learning experiences of my academic career. I’ve had the ability to work with the team collecting audio for stories and reporting on long term stories and assignments. One of the most rewarding parts of this internship has been learning the ins and outs of audio production. I’ve had the chance to get my feet wet and start to build a passion for radio storytelling.

The best part of my time here at NPR has been the opportunity to pitch stories to the team and have them published on the NPR Education Blog.  For summer,  I wrote a piece called Summer Reading For Your Woke Kid where I selected a list of socially conscious books for kids in grade school who want to learn about social movements and activism. It was NPR Book’s best story of the week which was pretty exciting.

I then pitched another story that centered around the racialization of dress codes in schools, called When Black Hair Violates The Dress Code, and how they target black female students. This piece I am most proud of because I spent weeks reporting and talking to researchers to build the story and working with my editor to make it come to life. When it was published it was the top three story on the NPR website which was a huge accomplishment for me and made me proud of my work. What I learned working for NPR is invaluable and look forward to taking it with me as I go on through my career.