Carline Hansen’s current DJ setup. Hansen, KUST vice president, has kept her radio show going from her home. (Photo courtesy of Caroline Hansen)
For students and staff alike at St. Thomas, sheltering at home may have proven to be difficult for some, having something to look forward to creates motivation for other things.
St. Thomas students who are a part of the on-campus radio station, KUST, have been conducting their shows remotely.
“The big difference is our DJs are all over the Midwest instead of our studio,” Caroline Hansen, KUST vice president, said. “The software is all the same, it just took time to get used to it at home.”
Despite not having the technology they normally have in the KUST studio, Caroline and some of her DJs have adapted to using Mixlr from their own computers.
Mixlr is an online broadcasting site that allows KUST to go live and interact with their listeners. The student DJs play music and talk freely with no need to record beforehand.
“There’s plenty of content out there,” Chris Wright, St. Thomas junior and host of Point, Counterpoint, said. “Whatever I hear in a podcast or read in an article, I’ll just talk about it and put my own take on or bring a guest on with me.”
While there are many downsides to working and studying from home, both Hansen and Wright agree the new flexibility of broadcasting from home is “really enjoyable.”
“It has been nice to do it from my house,” Wright said. “It gives us good things to talk about, like what we are doing during the quarantine.”
The fun has come with obstacles in the transition from a professional broadcasting studio to broadcasting from a bedroom.
“It’s been difficult to get used to having all of the levels, music and the broadcast site up on my one computer screen instead of the full studio to monitor it all,” Hansen said.
The “beauty” of KUST, as Hansen puts it, is that the club is flexible as to when people sign up to do their shows. But, since campus has closed, people have been more available to have Zoom meetings and to broadcast their shows.
“The diamond in the rough about all of this is that it’s been kind of fun to explore new concepts for shows that we couldn’t do before because of scheduling,” Hansen said, “but now, everyone is available.”
Mae Macfarlane can be reached at macf7507@stthomas.edu.