Meet Karen

Name: Karen Hazel

Hometown: Dallas, TX

Major: Radio-Television-Film

Graduated: December 2004

On the Air

In her junior year, she landed a prestigious job co-hosting the KVRX (UT Austin’s student radio station) weekly program What It Do. A popular talk-radio spot, What It Do addresses current issues in the African-American community and “all the other stuff we want to talk about,” Karen laughs.

Co-hosting has been this radio-television-film major’s first step on her future job path. After graduation next year, Karen hopes her hosting and disc-jockeying skills will lead to a professional radio career, whether back in her hometown or at a major station in a city like Chicago or Atlanta. For now, though, she’s leveraging her KVRX airtime to try to get experience working with other radio stations in Austin (which she calls “a small city with big dreams”).

There’s only one thing Karen doesn’t like about the show: “Well, I love talk radio, but I want to play more music!” she admits with a sly smile.

Growth

So how did Karen get to be where she is now? “Well, first I made a lot of bad decisions as a freshman...especially involving a credit card.” She’s sage, now that she’s spent several years processing her transition to college, and says “The difference in my decision-making now is that I expect to still make some bad decisions, but I always expect to make those bad decisions into good ones.”

As a freshman living in Jester West residence hall, Karen’s biggest worry about college life was community bathrooms (“which actually turned out to be a good experience,” she says). Along with a friend from high school, Karen chose UT Austin because it was close to home and because she earned a four-year Longhorn Opportunity Scholarship. In her first semester, Karen found friends quickly on her floor in Jester and met people from many different backgrounds at all of the activities she tried, so much so that she faced some difficult decisions trying to balance her responsibilities with her social life.

More than anything, Karen’s freshman year taught her financial responsibility and time management. Now she spends most weekends working at her off-campus job so she can pay all her bills with cash. “I like to spend money, so I have to work,” she smiles.

According to Karen, her most valuable experience in college so far has been “learning that I have to do things on my own.” And though early on she sometimes felt helpless making mistakes and having to find her way out of them, “I’ve learned how to take care of myself.”

In and Out of the Classroom

In her first semester, Karen’s communication advisor helped her pick out classes to ease her academic transition to college. Her favorite first-semester course - Rhetoric 306, or Freshman Composition - taught her to construct arguments and helped her gain some confidence in the classroom.

So far, Karen’s favorite class has been her sophomore-year Communication and Culture course, studying the history of cultures in American film. Weaving together her love for the entertainment industry and her interest in other cultures and traditions, the class gave Karen some background on her intended career path.

Outside of the classroom, one of Karen’s homes on campus for the past three years has been the African American Culture Committee. As a first-year student, she participated in many of the committee’s cultural and social programs, from the Kwanzaa Fest and dinner to talent shows and famous comedic acts the AACC brought to campus. That same year, she found herself planning what would become an AACC tradition: the first Fresh 2001 party (with barbecue, music, and sports) to welcome new minority students to campus.

Karen appreciates the African American Culture Committee because it put her in touch with upper-class students who were there from her first day on campus to tell her, “this is what it’s really like.” Now, she’s become an informal mentor herself, talking to new students she meets and to her younger friends about what to expect, what not to do, and how to work through difficult situations.

Free Time

“And, I'm starting a library.”

Over the years, Karen has collected enough books to start both a library and a book club with her friends.

“My friends and I read the same books and then we talk about the characters like they’re people, like it’s a soap opera,” she says passionately. “We pass around books. I have friends who say they’re non-readers. Well, give a non-reading friend a page-turner, and they become readers.”

Reading novels also helps her escape from the stress of school: “I’ll read anything that can make me leave my living room.”

What To Do (and What Not To Do)

Because of her own first-year experiences, Karen’s an advocate for making friends, making mistakes, and “making a face for yourself” on campus.

“College is all about connections,” she says frankly. “You’ve got to get involved; don’t be afraid to be active. And you want to make friends and get relationships so you’re encouraged to stay in school. Branch out socially. Allow people to talk to you randomly in classes. When you know someone, you end up sharing the experience (and making better grades).”

She’s also an advocate of planners, and more generally, of looking ahead at consequences. For instance, she always advises freshmen not to go home every weekend of their freshman year. “People who go home all the time,” she stresses, “don't make friends in the long run.”

As she looks forward to her senior year, Karen’s ready for the future. With all that she’s learned in the past three years, she says that now she feels like she’s looking toward “a future that is my own destiny, from the inside out. When I do things now, I do them for my family and my future as well as for myself.”