The Ontario Association of Broadcasters' 11th Annual Career Day event was held on Monday, March 7th, at Corus Entertainment in Toronto. Thank you to Corus Entertainment and Chris Sisam, General Manager, Corus Radio Toronto and Hamilton, for hosting Career Day 2024. Fifty-five broadcast professionals volunteered to host tables for the 350 students who attended, from ten post secondary broadcast schools, for this unique event.
Each year the OAB honours the memory of Seneca professor Michael Monty by awarding to a high academic and community-minded Ontario Broadcasting student an annual scholarship in his name. This year Muluba Habanyama from Sheridan College was selected as the worthy recipient and awarded the 2024 Michael Monty Scholarship.
This year's opening panel, "What I know now, that I wish I knew then" was very well received. Each panelist shared their stories and learning before opening the floor to questions from students. OAB Education Liaison Chair and moderator Neil Mathur would like to thank our panelists who for engaging the audience in such a fun and practical career-minded discussion - Christina Fitzgerald, Evanka Osmak, Shem Parkinson, Steve Saylor, Brittany Sprung and Nathan Smith.
Career Day provides a forum for soon-to-be graduating broadcasting students to meet with professionals in their field to talk candidly and ask questions. This allows them a level of access they would not normally have. The ever popular round-table discussions featured hosts from all areas of broadcasting and included: (alphabetically) John Arruda, Mora Austin, Shelley Barry, Julie Borthwick, Ron Brown, Dave Budge, Candice, Lynn Chambers, John Coldwell, Bruce Cowan, Ron Dann, Navi Dhanoa, Erica Diamond, Dale Fallon, Tara Fehertoi, Christina Fitzgerald, Jonathan Green, Diana Hansen, Jennifer Howe, Mike Katrycz, Shannon Kelly, Chris Lapp, Anne Lavrih, Veronica Low, Ross Macleod, Melani Mariani, Troy McCallum, Buffy McGaw, Scott Metcalfe, Matt Mise, Tyler Mountain, Evanka Osmak, Shem Parkinson, John Perras, Chris Pottage, Ken Reid, Dan Riccio, Steve Saylor, Stephanie Shaughnessy, Helena Shelton, Chris Sisam, Nathan Smith, Ian Solecki, Brittany Sprung, Andrew Taucar, Kyle Taylor, Andrew Thomas, Glenn Torrence, Maggie Tulecka, John Van Driel, Adriane Vogel, Dave Welch, Rob Wong, Dan Wylie, and Michael Zitney. The Ontario Association of Broadcasters thanks all the people who volunteered their time as hosts and panelists to create this event and assist future broadcasters.
Career Day sponsors have enabled the OAB to continue hold this event each year at no cost to individual students. Thank you to each of our sponsors: Host - Corus Entertainment; Platinum - Humber College and Seneca College; Gold - Applied Electronics Ltd, Durham Radio, MZ Media, and National Captioning Canada; Silver - Broadnetworx and Durham College; Bronze - Fanshawe College and NLogic.
The Ontario Association of Broadcasters' Education Liaison Committee is: Neil Mathur (Chair), Mora Austin, Lisa Bowditch, John van Driel, Andrew Forsyth and Chris Sisam.