Southwestern College AES Student Section Blog

At our last meeting, our student section and I had the privilege of hosting the West Regional Vice President David Scheirman and fellow colleague Mr. Ken Freeman.  Their backgrounds differed so much, one an aspiring audio engineer and the other a former commercial truck driver. (Can you guess correctly which became the Vice President?)  The meeting itself opened our eyes to the future of the audio industry and what options are available for us to pursue.  It’s also become apparent now more than ever that our dreams of working only in famous recording studios will no longer be the industry’s norm if we want to have long standing careers.

After the section meeting, the officers alongside our advisor and I, were very fortunate to have some time with Mr. Scheirman to reassure us about running and maintaining a successful AES section.  His advice included: contacting other successful student chapters for their best practices, as well as being persistent and consistent in our efforts.

To Mr. Scheirman and Mr. Freeman:  Thank you again for coming down to our studio and for being so encouraging and motivational.  It’s nice to know there are industry veterans cheering on the student newbies and when the time comes, I hope we make you guys proud.

-Mary Ann “Mae” Enginco (Chairwoman)

Last Monday, April 20th, we had the pleasure of having Mr. David Scheirman and Mr. Ken Freeman as guests to speak to us about career opportunities and trends of the audio industry. This was an event the officers and I have been looking forward to ever since starting up our student section. One of the main reasons why I joined AES in the first place was to learn more about the industry and what opportunities are offered within, so that I may prepare as a student early in my own career in audio. So having Mr. Scheirman and Mr. Freeman for the meeting was a great pleasure and honor. 

Not only was I able to receive such useful information, but my fellow peers did as well; and it was a great turn out. Everyone responded well with a business mentality and dressed accordingly. Showing our regional VP that we were serious about our own careers and wanted to present ourselves as such. The presentation itself gave us an understanding of the direction the audio industry is going, as well as career options and opportunities as well. I was fascinated with the point of view each of our guests had on this subject, as both of them led careers that were very diverse. It was then I learned, that to work in audio industry, one must be willing to take on such diverse jobs to create a personal resume that displays versatility and adaptability. Because of this, you'll be prepared for a fast evolving industry, for which in this case, is audio. 

We, the officers, also had the pleasure of having dinner with Vice President David Scheirman. Our advisor/mentor Professor James Henry also joined us for the meeting. There, we were further mentored on the business of running our AES Student Section here in San Diego, or rather for now, Southwestern College. We received additional resources and advice regarding how other student sections are run within our region. From here, we plan on networking with our fellow sections to not only promote our sections, but to also promote education in audio as a society. Also, the food and service at dinner was great. I can only look forward to the greater events our AES Student Section will host and take part in. 

- Julianne Sobejana (Vice Chair)

It was very exciting to have these guests over and I'm very proud of the work all the officers put in. Both Mr. Scheirman and Mr. Freeman shared a lot of views that I have been learning with Professor Henry. It was nice to see that they reinforced what I'm learning here, as well as the new material they discussed with the members. It is without doubt that these guests are very busy, so for them to visit us really gave us a new perspective on how to grow as a student section.

-Austin Aragon (Secretary)

It's been a rough couple days, filled with stress. We are grateful to have the AES VP West Coast (USA/Canada), David Scheirman, and his professional colleague, Ken Freeman, to come down to our school and guest speak.The student officers, including myself, have been planning this for about a month and we have been working on getting everything to run smoothly. We were not able to get a facility since we are not a club, however, we were grateful because Professor Henry let us use the studio facility.

On March 31st, we (student officers) from Southwestern College, decided to go to LA's Oscar award-winning/nominees panel meeting. The featured films were Whiplash, American Sniper, and Unbroken. However, the meeting did not start until 8 P.M. that night.

Our day started out by renting out a car so that we would have reliable transportation. I was the last one to get picked up, I was so excited for this day that I woke up at 7:30 A.M. with no alarm! There was a Subway nearby, thus we had some sandwiches for breakfast while planning our day out.

We decided to go visit some video game companies, hoping to get a guest-speaker to be interested in coming to our campus and talk about the industry he/she is in. Our plan fell short because many of these companies would not take walk-in meetings, however I personally enjoyed the experience of going out and actually communicating face to face with these companies. We hope to return in the future, prepared with an appointment for any of the companies we visited.

Our day was later followed by visiting Hollywood's Guitar Center, which felt like we were kids at a toy store since we were so entertained with the variety of instruments and tools that were available. We concluded with dinner in a restaurant and then headed to the meeting. The meeting was such a great experience, I'm sure all of the officers learned something new when it comes to film production. Clips of the featured films were shown and the artists/engineers explained the methods they used in their films, emphasizing on how it was effective for the audience. It was interesting to hear what these professionals have in mind when it comes to their artistical approach. After the panel ended, we introduced ourselves to these engineers and asked them if they would like to visit our school for a meet and greet, hoping to inspire our San Diego student members. I was shocked to hear them say they were interested and I hope we can work something out in the near future. The meeting ended about 9 P.M. but we truly didn't leave right away, even if our drive would get us home later. It was all worth it for this memorable trip.