Student Profile - Jessica Fine

Jessica Fine is one of those lucky people who’ve known what they wanted to do since high school. Fine, who graduated from Hillyer in 2005, got behind a television camera when she was a junior in high school and fell in love.

"I knew right away that I loved camera work and everything about television production," says Fine, who is now a communications major at the University of Hartford. While in high school, she filmed sporting events and school productions. For the past five summers, she has worked filming Planning Board, Finance Committee and Selectmen meetings in Andover, Massachusetts, where she grew up.

Fine says that when she started as a freshman at Hillyer, a professor in the communications department asked her to “jump in on the camera” and show him her skills while they were doing some filming in the University’s television studio. He watched her work, and then recommended her for an advanced television production class, which she took during her sophomore year. Students taking the class are usually juniors and seniors.

Fine's talent and single-minded focus on her career goals have paid off. She worked for ESPN2 during the summer of 2005 covering the X Games in Los Angeles, and she will begin working for ESPN's Global Production Operations Department this fall as an advanced student intern, one of only four selected from 1,500 applicants. "It's a great launch for my career," says Fine, who plans to go on and get her master’s degree in communication. "ESPN is known to hire a high percentage of their interns."