I don’t remember what classes I took that first summer (or any other year, either), but I was an electrical engineering student, so everything I took was aimed toward getting that degree. I had taken enough classes in junior college, that a five year curreculum could be finished in three years if I went year round. Since I was on leave from IBM, I needed to finish as soon as possible.
One significant thing happened that summer. I somehow found out that the KBYU-TV station needed on-the-air operators. I think I met someone who worked there, I’m not sure. I found out that if I had an FCC license, I would have a good chance of getting a job. Well, I didn’t want to clean floors for three years, so I thought I’d try for a job at the TV station. (It paid better, too.) I bought a book to study to take the FCC license test. As it turned out, all I needed was a third class license which is easy to get. You just send in an application. Instead, I studied for and took the test for the first class which is the highest class you can get. We were scheduled to go to Michigan on vacation during the summer. I’m not sure exactly when we went, probably between the summer term and the fall term, but while there, I took a day and drove over to Detroit and took the FCC test for my first class license. I found out a couple weeks later that I had passed and soon after that I got the license in the mail.
So, late in the summer, I got an appointment with the guy who ran the KBYU-TV station. He was the head engineer. I told him I was a student and I would like to work for the station in the fall when classes started again. He looked at me like everyone wants to work at the station, why should I hire you? He asked me if I had a FCC license. I said, yes sir, a first class. He smiled and said, when can you start? When you have a first class in the station, the station satisfies certain FCC regulations, so by hiring me, they were able to free up another license holder to do other things. I worked on the air at KBYU for three years until I graduated. It was a great job and I enjoyed it a lot. I was running on the air when the first Sesame Street was aired. I remember it very well. We also played Mr Roger’s Neighborhood and lots of other cool PBS type programming. It was a great job because we would load the next show on the VCR and then you didn’t have to do anything until the show was over and you had to load the next one. So you could study while shows played. You were there in case something went wrong, but nothing ever did. It was the perfect job for a student.
Dad